San Benito High School sophomore Santiago Hernandez shared his experience of going through life without sight on an episode of Nick News, a news segment that airs on Nicklelodeon and on its website.
Hernandez is one of a half-dozen high school students who share their experiences with moving through the world without sight in the video. He recalls that while his vision was impaired as a child, he lost all of his sight when he had an infection.
“When I lost my sight, I was kind of bumping into stuff and didn’t realize where stuff was,” he said, in the video. “I felt like I couldn’t do anything anymore.”
He said when it was time to attend high school, some people were concerned that he would not be able to navigate the large campus at San Benito High School with about 3,000 students.
“They thought I might fail navigation and possibly academics,” he said. “I thought about going to a school for the blind. It teaches them, but it isolates them from the rest of the world. I want to live in the sighted world, not in a blind world.”
Along with the other teens in the news piece, Hernandez explained his challenges. He needs assistance with things such as selecting what clothes to wear. He uses an app on his smart phone to tell him what color the clothes in his closet are so he can select items that go together.
“Since I lost my sight completely, there is a lot of planning involved and a lot of obstacles,” he said. “There are a lot of things I had to get used to.”
Hernandez, who has plans to be a computer programmer in the future and perhaps own his own company, said he and a group of friends created an application that allows blind people the same access to social media sites.
“Without this app, it would be difficult to navigate,” he said. “It makes it easier to be a part of it.”
Listen to his experiences here.
