Mike May (skier)

Michael G. "Mike" May (born 1954) is an American business executive and sports enthusiast who was blinded by a chemical explosion at the age of 3 but regained partial vision in 2000, at 46, after cornea transplants and pioneering stem cell procedure by San Francisco ophthalmologist Daniel Goodman. In 1999 he founded the Sendero Group,^[1] in Davis, CA, which employs many individuals who are blind or visually impaired. Sendero has assisted those with sight disabilities by producing the first accessible GPS solution for blind persons. Their technology received the Consumer Electronics Show "New Innovations Award" in 2004.

Among his many accomplishments, May holds the record for downhill skiing by a totally blind person (racing at 65 mph). He competed in alpine skiing at the 1984 Winter Paralympics and won three bronze medals in the downhill, giant slalom, and combination events.^[2] He and his wife, Jennifer, have two sons, Carson and Wyndham.

In 2006, journalist Robert Kurson wrote a book on May, Crashing Through, expanded from an article he did for Esquire,^[3] which is being adapted into a motion picture.^[4] Crashing Through was released on May 15, 2007.

Recovery from Blindness

May reportedly has adapted well to his recovered vision.

• He still has no intuitive grasp of depth perception. As people walk away from him, he perceives them as literally shrinking in size
• He has problems distinguishing male from female faces, and recognizing emotional expressions on unfamiliar faces.[1]

The effect of visual loss has an impact in the development of the visual cortex of the brain. The visual impairment causes the occipital lobe to lose its sensitivity in perceiving spatial processing. Sui and Morley (2008) proposed that after 7 days of visual deprivation, a potential decrease in vision may occur. They also found an increasing visual impairment with deprivation after 30 days and 120 days. This study suggests that the function of the brain depends on visual input. May lost his eyesight at age 3, when his vision was still not fully developed to distinguish shapes, drawings or images clearly. It would be difficult for him to be able to describe the world compared to a normal sighted person. For instance, he would have trouble differentiating complex shapes, dimension and orientations of objects. Hannan (2006) hypothesized that the temporal visual cortex uses prior memory and experiences to make sense of shapes, colours and forms. She proposed that the long term effect of blindness in the visual cortex is the lack of recognition of spatial cues.

At 3 years of age, May's vision had still not reached the acuity of an adult person, so his brain was still not completely exposed to all possible clarity of images and light of the environment. His brain lacked the full picture of the world to be able to describe its beauty. This made it difficult for him to lead a normal daily life. Cohen et al. (1997) suggested that early blindness causes a poor development of the visual cortex with the result of a decrease in somatosensory development. This study proposed that May's long term blindness affects his ability to distinguish between faces of males and females, and to recognize pictures and images. In spite of the surgery on his right eye, his newly regained vision, after blindness of forty years, is not fully recovered. Thinus-Blanc and Gaunet (1997) suggest that early blinded people show limited ability in spatial representation. May still struggles to identify pictures or illustrations. The impairment of his visual cortex, due to the loss of his vision at a very early age, resulted in visual cortex cells that are not used to the stimuli in his surroundings. Cohen et al. (1997) proposed that in their early age, blinded subjects developed strong motivations to tactile discrimination tasks. May's early blindness benefited him so far; he developed very precise senses of hearing and touch.

References

1. ^ Homepage of Sendero Group
2. ^ mike may's profile on paralympic.org
3. ^ Esquire article "Into the Light" by Robert Kurson (published June 1, 2005)
4. ^ Hollywood Reporter news on film about May

External links

• Manchester Guardian article
• Braille Monitor article reprint (November 2002)
• Clip from Discovery Channel documentary about May
• May's own account
• About Mike May at the Sendero site
• "Giving Sight to the Blind" video lecture about May by Brian Wandell (Stanford University)

See also

• Acquired vision
• Sidney Bradford

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Name	May, Mike
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Date of birth	1954
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