Jessica Cox, was born in the year 1983 without arms. while she used prosthetic limbs as a kid growing up, she eventually abandoned them to learn how to use her feet to perform daily tasks.
She seems to have perfected the use of her feet as has gone ahead to become the world’s first licensed armless pilot and she flies aeroplanes with her feet.
Mrs Cox is said able to drive a car without any special modification done to the car, she can type on a keyboard and at the same time plays the piano perfectly, constantly proving that her disability would not hold her back.
Jessica in a speech said:
‘Naturally people saw me not having arms as a limiting factor – but I was there to prove them wrong.
‘At three years old I was involved in gymnastics, at six I started tap dancing lessons, I did modelling, I swam at five, 10-years-old I was doing Tae Kwon Do, I did every activity you could imagine.’
‘There’s nothing that can substitute the tactile ability of flesh and bone – and my feet have that ability,’
Jessica Cox graduated from the University of Arizona in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in communications.
Cox has not used prosthetic arms since she turned 14. Using her feet as most people use their hands, she is able, among other things, to drive an unmodified car with an unrestricted license, to type on a keyboard at 25 words per minute, to pump her own gas, and to put in and remove her contact lenses.
Jessica Cox flew in a single engine airplane for the first time via Wright Flight in 2005. Cox earned her pilot’s certificate on October 10, 2008, after three years of training, and is qualified to fly a light-sport aircraft to altitudes of 10,000 feet.
She received her flight training through an Able Flight scholarship and soloed under the instruction of Parrish Traweek. She was the first armless woman to achieve this feat.
At the age of 10, Jessica Cox began training in taekwondo at a school in her home town of Sierra Vista. By the time she clocked 14, she had earned her first black belt.
While in college at the University of Arizona Cox restarted her taekwondo training at an American Taekwondo Association club on campus. In an effort to help future armless students, the instructors created an entire training curriculum by modifying the standard material from the ATA.
Cox is the subject of the documentary Right Footed. The film is directed by Emmy Award winning filmmaker Nick Spark.
The documentary chronicles Cox’ life, mentorship, humanitarian trips to Ethiopia and the Philippines, as well as her efforts to pass the CRPD in the US Senate.