SLIDELL, La. – One minute, Devin Funck was a typical kid living a typical life in suburban Slidell, spending a lazy summer afternoon swimming with four friends in a lake near his home. The next minute, he was being dragged by his arm through the waters of Crystal Lake, fighting a 500-pound alligator named Big Joe with all the tenacity a 12-year-old boy could muster.

“It was Godzilla,” he would recall of the monster that ripped off and swallowed his left arm in the July 30 attack.

By the day’s end, doctors at New Orleans’ Ochsner Medical Center broke the news to Devin and his parents that they could not reattach his arm, which authorities had retrieved after hunting down and cutting open the alligator.

Devin’s reaction was decisive: “Get me a robot arm that looks like the Terminator.”

Throughout his healing process, Devin remains full of life. On a typical afternoon last week, Kim Funck awoke from a nap to find that Devin, one of her four children, had left the house to go paintballing at Crystal Lake, which abuts the subdivision where he lives. “He just seems to have no fear,” she said.

But he does have hope, thanks to prosthetic specialist Kenneth Bordelon and fellow amputee Russell Marse. While getting fitted for his first prosthetic arm Aug. 22 at the Orthotic and Prosthetic Center, Devin learned from Marse, who lost his right arm at 13, what he can look forward to doing.

“You’re going to be able to ride bikes,” he said, displaying his arm and metal hook. “You’re going to do everything.”

Devin’s arm, which will fit over his shoulder with a strap over his chest, will have a rubber hand that he’ll be able to open and close using his right hand. It will be mostly cosmetic, but will keep Devin’s shoulders level and allow him to become accustomed to wearing a prosthetic device, Bordelon said.

As a shirtless Devin stood still while prosthetic technician Paul Beaudette took measurements, Bordelon offered to cover the metal arm in foam and a spray-on latex “skin,” if Devin wants a more realistic look.

Devin wasn’t interested.

“I want a robot arm,” he said.

In a few months Devin will be fitted for a body-powered arm with a hook like Marse’s. And in a few years, as the technology improves, Devin could get one of the computerized models that connect to nerve endings and are powered by Devin’s brain.

“You’ll be able to swim and ride a four-wheeler,” Bordelon told him. “You like riding a four-wheeler?”

Sitting in an office chair, surrounded by the Terminator-like technology that will become his future, Devin’s eyes widen with possibility.