Overview

• While on holiday in southern Italy last August, Alessandro Luciano developed burning sensations and black spots that were diagnosed as meningococcal type B with purpura fulminans.
• Surgeons at a Stuttgart hospital amputated both lower legs and several fingers to stop the infection from spreading.
• Although he now uses prosthetic limbs, Luciano cannot access his fifth-floor apartment without assistance.
• His wife, Iljhama, carries him up and down five flights of stairs twice daily on a stair climber, straining her health and his independence.
• Local building codes prevent installing a stair lift or tracked wheelchair system inside their older stairwell, making an external elevator their only viable option.