Enchroma glasses open window for Tallahassee man with color blindness
A Tallahassee man got to see the world in color for the first time with the surprise of special glasses for color blindness from his wife and young children on June 7.
One in 12 men (8%) and one in 200 women (.5%) are color blind – close to one million in Florida alone (including Tiger Woods and Marco Rubio), 13 million in the US and 350 million worldwide. While people with normal color vision see over one million hues and shades, the color blind only see about 10%.
To Nick Rickman of Tallahassee, the world appears gray, dull, washed out and some colors are indistinguishable; purple and blue look the same; red appears brown; pink is gray; green looks brownish or gray, peanut butter seems green and stoplights white-ish.
On Monday, June 7, at 1 p.m. Nick’s wife Kellie, children, and friends, surprised him with EnChroma glasses that will enable them to better see a world in color. His kids have drawn special colorful pictures for him.
About her husband, who is a Commission Investigator, Kellie says: "Our daughter drew a beautiful picture and told her dad it was a pretty purple dragon. He tried to explain that he couldn’t tell it was purple, but her being 5 she didn’t understand why it wasn’t purple to her dad. She proceeded to lecture him on colors and why her dragon was PURPLE, not red, not brown, not grey, not orange, PURPLE. It was so sweet to watch her try to teach her dad colors. I would like him to see what his sweet daughter was explaining with the glasses and for him to be able to go fishing and be outside – which he loves – with his kids and see everything in color.”
Color blind celebrities include Tiger Woods, Marco Rubio, Neil Young, Bill Clinton, Prince William, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Nicklaus, Howie Mandel, Bill Gates and others.
EnChroma glasses use special optical filters that help the color blind see an expanded range of color and to see it more clearly, vibrantly and distinctly. The glasses are the product of two NIH research grants and clinical trials at UC Berkeley and UC Davis.
Importantly, the glasses are not a cure for color blindness and work for 9 out of 10 color blind people.
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