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Rob Anderson was able to move the fingers on his left hand up and down for the first time yesterday by just thinking about it.

While that might not seem like much of a feat, consider that the 30-year-old Albertan lost his left arm in a helicopter crash more than two years ago.

His new bionic arm, a first in Canada, and the revolutionary procedure behind it will officially debut today at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton.

"I can now feel my wrist and hand, so when I think 'Close the hand,' I actually feel a phantom hand closing," Mr. Anderson said yesterday, as the married father of two young children tested the $85,000 prosthesis for staff at the hospital.

Currently, most prostheses used on upper-limb amputees are controlled by the flexing of specific muscles. Movements are often awkward because only a single motion can be directed at a time.

Mr. Anderson was first told about this new technology by Jackie Hebert, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at the Glenrose, in the fall of 2006. Called targeted muscle reinnervation, the procedure, which was first developed and used in the United States, allows patients with a prosthetic arm to direct its movements by thought as if it were a natural limb.

The wildfire ranger with Alberta's forestry division had lost both his left arm above the elbow and his left leg at the ankle in a helicopter crash southwest of Grande Prairie, Alta., on July 3, 2006.

"I crawled on my stumps through the debris and the grass and rocks to get out," Mr. Anderson, a Grande Prairie resident, recalled yesterday. He kept thinking about his wife, Sophie, who was 4½ months pregnant at the time with their daughter, Danika, who is now nearly two years old.

One person, Darcy Moses, a firefighter, died in the crash. Two others sustained minor injuries.

Because of his health and fitness at the time of the crash, Mr. Anderson's rehabilitation has been smooth and relatively quick, and he decided to participate in the groundbreaking program at the Glenrose.

On March 11, 2008, Mr. Anderson and Larry Hayes-Richards, a 62-year-old amputee and veteran from Edmonton, were operated on. "Their nerves were basically rewired," Dr. Hebert explained.

Surgeons in Edmonton reattached cut nerves in both men's amputated arms to remaining healthy muscle in their chest and surrounding areas.

"The brain thinks the arm is still there and still sends the messages through to the muscle," Dr. Hebert said. "But it's reattached to the new muscle. That signal is transmitted to the prosthetic device."

Dr. Hebert and a team of specialists in Edmonton have been consulting with Todd Kuiken of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago; he is the doctor credited with pioneering this research.

She said the bionic arm still has a long way to go in terms of function. For example, the new prosthesis Mr. Anderson uses has four degrees of freedom, while a normal functioning arm has 21. It also shouldn't get wet because of the small computer hidden inside it.

But as an option for upper-limb amputees, Dr. Hebert said it's a major improvement over what she's been able to offer until now.

"I'm tired of telling people that I can give you a hook and you can use it like a tool," she said.

Mike Stobbe, a prosthetist at the Glenrose, said it's possible that in the future amputees who have undergone this procedure will be able to feel sensations in their artificial limbs such as hot and cold.

It's only a matter of time before the technique is applied successfully to legs, he added.

"We all grew up with Steve Austin," Mr. Stobbe said with a laugh, referring to the popular 1970s television series The Six Million Dollar Man that featured a character with bionic limbs.

"We all thought this would happen one day."