A RIVETING new TV series in body science has had a 'bionic' Bolton man glued to the screen.

In the latest programme of the BBC1 series Superhuman, Professor Robert Winston focused on a revolutionary electronic arm just like the one that is set to change the life of 36-year-old David Bradshaw.

David, of Chorley Road, Westhoughton, expects to be told within the next few weeks when he will be fitted with an advanced, motorised limb.

This outdates all previous attempts at copying the movements of the human arm.

The arm is almost ready and final adjustments are being made to the complicated mechanism.

David, a clerk in Bolton Council's drainage department, lost his right arm after a motorcycle crash in Chorley New Road, Horwich in 1984. The arm was amputated close to the shoulder.

And though he has been fitted with a mechanised arm, its range of movement is basic.

The new, bionic arm featured in Superhuman on Sunday has taken 35 years to develop under the guidance of Edinburgh-based doctor of bio-engineering David Gow, who specialises in prosthetics.

The human guinea pig who has been testing it out is Scottish hotelier Campbell Aird who was featured in the programme.

But, as viewers saw, the technology still needs to be perfected.

In some movement sequences, Mr Aird's arm was described as "a bit like a supermarket trolley".

It did its own thing.

The new arm has a motorised shoulder and can rotate and bend at the elbow and wrist and the fingers contract. Movement of the false limb is triggered by small twitches of the body where it attaches to the shoulder.

David was astounded when he was asked to help with the development of the new arm last year.

He said: "It is still being developed and it all takes time and is very expensive.

"But I expect to hear at any time that an arm is ready for me. I have been to Scotland twice and they have been working with my prosthetist Bryan Cork at Withington Hospital.

"I was fascinated by the programme. I was glued to the screen.

"People kept phoning me to say the arm I was getting had been on television.

"I can't wait to get it. With the new arm I will have reach, which I don't have now.

"At the moment, my arm is restricted to elbow movement."