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RALEIGH – The latest and greatest technology for amputees made its way to the Triangle this week. The world’s first bionic hand has fingers that move independently, essentially allowing amputees to grip objects better than every before.

Ebele Achonu lost her hand four-years ago. The prosthetic hand she’s been using has limitations.

“When I'm cooking sometimes … it's hard to hold vegetables and little things you need all your fingers for,” she said.

Now, she’s trying out the new i-Limb bionic hand.

“It's one of the most advanced technologies available today for the upper limp prosthetic patient,” said Bill Limehouse, certified prosthetist. “It has five individual motors for each finger of the hand.”

Those motors allow amputees to actually grasp an entire object, such as a baseball. The i-Limb uses the patients remaining arm muscles to send signals to the bionic hand and move it.

“The usage allows a little bit more convenience,” said Limehouse. “Instead of pre-positioning the body to get something, the hand does a lot of the adjusting for reaching and grabbing things, where with other systems they had to adjust their shoulder or hand to get the object.”

About 300 people have the hand. Most of them are wounded soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.