NEW YORK, May 23 — More than three years ago, Julissa Marquez was rendered blind from a brutal stabbing. Doctors said she would never see again.
In December, 2013, Marquez's boyfriend Miguel Cordero showed up at her home completely naked and said he wanted to kill her then 12-year-old son. She called her pastor to get Cordero but he forced his way in. Marquez threw herself in front of Cordero and told her son to lock himself inside his room.
Marquez, a eSight user and patient at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, says: “He grabbed one of my 12-inch knives and basically just started hacking away and my first stab wound was literally to my left eye.
“He ruptured my eye and basically just kept going from there. Altogether it was counted that I had 30 stab wounds. I lost the left vision right away once it was stabbed. And in the middle of the attack, I lost vision from my right eye.
“He was strangling me, asking me you know like, why didn't I die yet. And it wasn't my time. I always tell people it wasn't my time.”
Today, with help from electronic glasses, Marquez's vision is nearly 20/20.
She began using the eSight headset in October, which made her eyesight go from legally blind to in focus.
How did she feel when she first put on the headset?
Marquez describes: “Oh my gosh it was amazing. Like it really was amazing. I got to see my sister's face nice and clear from when this first happened. I finally got to see my doctor, you know like how awesome he looks, you know?”
Dr Ronald Gentile, retina surgeon at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai and his team of doctors were able to restore the retina in her right eye after the stabbing.
Her optic nerve in her left eye was severed so it gave her little potential to see.
Marquez's right retina was detached and crumpled in the back of her eye. Gentile and his team were able to put the retina back into place and restore her vision, although she's still legally blind.
Dr Gentile says: “Her ocular trauma score only gave her about a 3 per cent chance of having useful vision. We've definitely surpassed that in terms of her prognosis, not only from the surgery that we did but also using technology to actually get her to see better.”
Wearing regular glasses now, Marquez's vision is 20/200, which basically means she can see at 20 feet what a person with perfect vision can see at 200 feet.
Dr Gentile adds: “With the eSight glasses, with her magnification, she's able to get to the 20/20 line. But we don't like to use that as 20/20 because that's without magnification. I sort of look at vision in terms of how it improves her functioning. So we have people with very good vision that aren't functioning very well. We have people with poor vision that function very well. What she does is she takes the information that she has and she makes the most of it.”
eSight Eyewear was founded in 2006 by engineer Conrad Lewis, who has two sisters who are legally blind. Lewis created the company to help them and other legally blind people see clearly.
Director of marketing at eSight Eyewear Jeffrey Fenton says: “eSight houses a camera in the front of the device. It captures what is in front of a legally blind user. The device will then instantly enhance that footage. It will enhance it into a format that is, what I would say, palatable for the visually impaired or legally blind eyes.
“The device is almost bombarding the eyes with so much information to send to the brain through the eye that it can present them with a picture that is pretty much what you would see or I would see. It is a true wearable breakthrough for those who are living with vision loss.”
The latest generation of the eSight glasses go for US$9,995 (RM43,178). — Reuters
