ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 24, 1996 TAG: 9612240082
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
A childhood accident blinded Vern Harryman in one eye. Five decades later, another accident has given it back.
``This is truly a Christmas miracle,'' he said.
Actually, the restoration of sight in his left eye started the week before Thanksgiving, when he turned to talk to a friend and walked into a post at a shopping mall, he said Monday.
The sudden jolt dislodged the damaged and opaque lens that had blocked his vision, letting it slip to the side.
Now a contact lens takes part of the function of the damaged natural lens, and on Saturday doctors gave him trifocal glasses. The combination has given him 20/40 vision, said Harryman, who turns 63 on Christmas Eve.
Both of Harryman's eyes were injured when he was 10 by dirt thrown in his face while playing with friends.
He spent 10 days in a hospital with his eyes covered. When the bandages came off, he could see out of his right eye but his left eye was blind.
``Doctors told me I would never see again out of that eye,'' he said. ``I just went on with my life.''
In November, while Harryman was walking with friends at North Kent Mall, he turned to talk to someone and walked into the post.
``I immediately saw that things were brighter, but I didn't say anything to anybody,'' he said Monday. ``By the time I got home, I knew something was going on.''
Doctors told him the accidental jarring shook the opaque lens out of its place inside his left eye, allowing light to reach the undamaged retina where images are turned into data for the brain.
``He's surprised a lot of us,'' Harryman's optometrist, David Sevensma, said Monday.
The eye is still blurry, but he said it is improving every day.
``You can't imagine what's it's like,'' he said. ``It has been so dark on the left side for so long. If nothing else, being able to see better ought to knock six strokes off my golf game.''
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB