Woman Blind for 21 Years Regains Sight After Falling

A 70-year old Florida woman surprisingly regained her sight after 21 years following a fall.

Woman Regains Sight

Mary Ann Franco lost her sight after a car accident in 1995, in which her spine was injured. In the days after the accident, her vision faded as well. “It went blackish gray, and I couldn’t see anything.” she told WPBF.

In August 2015 Franco fell at her home, which eventually required her to have surgery. “I was in my living room, going over to the door. My foot caught on a tile and it flipped me. I hit my head in the back, and hit it on something else, maybe the fireplace,” she said.

In 2016 she had neck surgery related to her fall. When she woke from anesthesia, it didn’t occur to her at first that her sight had returned.

“I said, ‘Lady – you with all that purple on you, get over here and give me something for pain.’ And my niece says, ‘What did you say Mary?'”

Her niece then called the rest of Mary’s family to tell them the good news. After going home from the hospital, Mary was finally able to see what her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even her cat and dog looked like.

The doctor who operated on Mary, neurosurgeon Dr. John Afshar, said he has never seen a case like this. He theorizes that Mary’s initial accident may have compressed an artery in her spine which could have restricted blood flow to the area of the brain that controls vision. His recent surgery on Mary have have inadvertently “un-kinked” the artery, restoring her vision. “This is all theoretical,” he shrugged. Another strange twist is that Mary Ann’s color blindness, which affected her prior to the accident, was also gone.

Mary Ann’s theory is more of a divine nature, stating that God had “given me back my sight.”

“It’s so wonderful to see,” she said.