A pair of high-tech glasses enabled a 10-year-old boy from Manitoba to see his first Winnipeg Jets game Saturday.
Benjamyn Francey is legally-blind due to a rare eye condition called Leber's congenital amaurosis. This condition means Francey can only see colours and silhouettes.
But last October, a fundraising campaign help raise $20,000 for Francey to receive a pair of eSight glasses, which allow him see detail, like facial features.
The $20,000 device is a wearable, hands-free headset that uses a high-speed camera to capture everything the user is looking at, the eSight website says. The video is then sent back to the headset and shown on LED-screens in front of the user’s eyes.
Ken Curtis, vice-chair of the board of directors at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, arranged for his employer Assiniboine Credit Union to sponsor tickets for Francey and his family to the game.
“Benjamyn’s been pretty excited. He’s been to a Jets game before, but that time, unfortunately, he couldn’t see the players. So this time, he’s really excited to see the players,” Francey’s mother Jenna Cason told CTV Winnipeg.
Before the game, Francey got a tour of the MTS Centre, where he checked out the view from the announcer's box, and a jersey with the name of his favourite player, Patrick Laine.
With files from CTV Winnipeg
