Nick Hardman, 40, uses a 3D printer to create tracheostomies, dialysis machines and hearing aids, which he then stitches to cuddly toys to give to poorly youngsters. He started making the teddies almost three years ago after being asked to make a toy shunt battle for a child who had a brain tumour.
Video by SWNS.
Video by SWNS.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 But yeah, because she's blind in one eye, you can see what the teddy surgeons have done
00:04 to the glasses.
00:05 How cool is that?
00:06 We've got a couple of scars, there's one here and one here.
00:13 I'm Nick, I'm the founder of 3D Toy Shop, we are a non-profit where we make toys that
00:28 don't exist so children can have a teddy like them.
00:30 Now you'll go to a shop, you will try and buy a teddy bear, but you will not be able
00:35 to get a teddy bear that has got a brain implant because nobody makes them.
00:39 Creative today Nick, creative today.
00:42 It's sorted.
00:43 What have you done with it?
00:46 Not like desperately out, I'm just making these up and I've just had to apply mine.
00:53 We're not desperately out?
00:54 It's from the safari thing.
00:55 We haven't got a regular supply of them, so I don't want everyone to fall in love with
01:00 this.
01:01 From there, and put a piece on there.
01:05 You could put this inside popping up.
01:10 I really want everyone to have a teddy like them, so I designed these toys, I 3D print
01:15 them, I keep them in stock in all these shelves here.
01:18 My teddy surgeons come twice a week, parents fill out the form with the children's medical
01:22 information and we match up the toys so that the child's teddy can be just like them.
01:28 It will sort of look like that.
01:35 Right.
01:36 And there will be a hole in here.
01:42 I've got the black.
01:45 There's a few scars at the back from a tube being put in this internal stent.
01:48 And scars at the bottom.
01:49 My mum, she was terrified of a heart surgery, so we sent her a teddy and then she said,
01:53 mum, I can't wait to have my surgery so I can be like my teddy.
01:56 So to change a child's perception from fear to excitement is just something you can't
02:01 put a price on.
02:17 And then there was a little one who didn't like a hearing aid so she kept pulling them
02:21 out.
02:22 Well she got a teddy and that behaviour has now stopped.
02:24 They actually change lives.
02:35 I just know it's the most important thing in the world and I want to help them all.
02:38 I was going to do it with the legs because I've got legs.
02:41 Because legs help them all.