SPARKS – Limbs and ligaments littered the Rose Ballroom at John Ascuaga's Nugget on Thursday, among other ambulatory items.

“New processes are giving patients more freedom and more mobility than we dreamed possible,” Hanger Prosthetic and Orthotics president and Chief Operating Officer Richmond L. Taylor said before declaring the company's conference officially open Thursday morning.

More than 800 clinicians and 100 vendors will gather at the Nugget this weekend to share the latest technology in prosthetics and introduce prototypes aimed at helping the limbless regain the ability to live life to the fullest. The event is open only to registered members of the prosthetic industry.

Mingling amid the artificial body parts were many who wore the prosthetic devices. Some blended into the crowd while others showed off their robotic fingers.

Karl Chapin blended into the crowd until you shook his hand and heard his story.

In 1969, Chapin found himself pressed beneath the fire of the Viet Cong in the A Shau valley of South Vietnam. Amid the fire, a grenade made its way into a foxhole holding an injured soldier. Chapin said he knew something had to be done, so he jumped into the foxhole, grabbed the grenade and threw it right as the explosive went off.

Without thinking, Chapin said, he grabbed the injured man and pulled him to a medic.

“The medic said, 'You may want to sit down buddy.' and I still didn't know why,” Chapin said. “Well, my hand was missing.”

The Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient was demonstrating the iLimb, a prosthetic hand with fingers that flex and grip. More specifically, he was demonstrating the flesh-like cover for the limb, an $18,000 work of art done by a painter to match the exact skin tone and structure of Chapin's existing flesh on his intact left hand.

“I disappear in a crowd,” he said. “You don't get the stares and the children looking at you.”

Greg Reynolds, a classic car tinkerer and enthusiast, held his right hand in the air and flexed the hinges in his mechanical fingers. The prosthetic hand was a prototype produced by RSLStepper yet to be released on the open market that aimed to simulate realistically the functions of the real hand Reynolds had lost.

Functions of the “Bebionic” hand such as speed, grip force and grip patterns, can be custom programmed to suit individual user requirements through smart software and wireless technology.

“It can pinch, power fist, grasp, hold keys and credit cards, point the finger,” Reynolds said, “but it uses the same muscle controls that other limbs use.”

The inventor, Mark Hunter, got his start in the special effects industry, freelancing and creating mechanical limb movement in the movies. Then, his friend's daughter was born with a congenital hand defect that left the little girl with half a hand and no thumb.

“He was taking what he did in the film industry and putting it to work,” Reynolds said.

The man spent 14 years scrutinizing with squinted eyes how the human hand operated — from how the joints of the fingers come together when making a fist to how different fingers behave while grasping different shapes.

The result was the first prototype that was shown off by Reynolds at the Hanger conference and a product that he hopes to release in May 2011.

But not all were amputees. Debra Gomez-Trost wore a little electrical device strapped to her calf and held a small cane in her hand. The mother of triplets and former full-time microbiologist suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, a malady that attacks the brain and spinal cord and subsequently all the nerves that attach to them.

“So I developed foot drop,” Gomez-Trost said, explaining that malfunctioning nerves eliminated her ability to lift her foot from the ankle. The situation made just walking around the house a monumental task.

Gomez-Trost's WalkAide cuff sends an electrical signal through her leg and down to her ankle when she walks, stimulating the nerve that tells her ankle to lift.

“You are getting to use one of the physical responses that you thought you lost,” she said.

“If she didn't have the help, she couldn't go fishing with us,” said Cole, one of her triplet sons.

And while Hanger officials touted the new technology, the amputees in the room recognized the underlying truth behind prosthetics.

“When a person becomes an amputee, they think their lives end,” said Chapin, who is also a professional amputee advocate. “You will and you have to go through depression and stress. Once you get though that, you can start to heal physically, as well.

“It doesn't matter what technology there is,” Chapin added. “It's only good if the person will use it.”