Good NewsHeart-warming photo shows you can give a hug without using your arms
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Jessica Cox has become a popular name on the Internet of late for being the first ever pilot to steer an airplane without arms. It shouldn’t come as any surprise, then, that she would be idolized by Ruth Evelyn ‘RE’ Pranke, a little girl who was also born without these crucial limbs.
Last week, the two finally met, as the little girl and her mother traveled six hours to an airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin to meet the inspirational pilot.
The touching moment between the two was captured during the documentary premiere of “Right Footed,” about Cox’s journey to becoming a pilot, ABC reported.
“You don’t need arms to return a hug…or give one,” read the caption on the photo posted to Facebook page for Cox’s documentary.
During her 20th week of pregnancy, Pranke’s mother knew her daughter would be born without arms. So she turned to the Internet and started researching ways her child could overcome her disability.
Fortunately, she came across Cox’s story and how she overcame a similar disability.
According to Today.com, Cox earned her Light Pilot Certificate in 2008 and became the “First Armless Person in the World Ever to Have Obtained a Pilot’s License” in 2011. She also holds the record for the first person without arms to receive a black belt from the American Taekwondo Association.
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“It was amazing,” mother Karlyn Pranke told ABC News. “I’m just grateful that we had the opportunity to show everyone that it doesn’t matter if you have arms or not, that you can do the same things as everyone else – you just may have to do it a little differently.”
Cox was also captured signing a poster with an inspiring message for Pranke, who sat next to her watching as she wrote with her right foot.
The message read: “RE, you can do anything! Love, you Right Footed Friend.”
“I was so happy when I heard RE and her family were coming to the premiere. She was so cute I wanted to bundle her up and take her home with me,” Cox wrote on her page.
