Marine tests device that restores some vision
By Ramit Plushnick-Masti - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jun 18, 2009 17:20:28 EDT

PITTSBURGH — Cpl. Michael Jernigan’s last memory from Aug. 22, 2004, is being in a Humvee with his Marine Corps buddies patrolling a road in Mahmudiyah, Iraq. His next memory is six days later, awaking in a military hospital in Bethesda, Md.

“You wake up in a bed with your head crushed in and no sight,” Jernigan said, his left eye a sewn shut eyelid, his right eye a slit of white, a severely scarred eyelid above.

Jernigan’s determination to regain his independence after being blinded by a roadside bomb landed him Thursday in a new University of Pittsburgh vision restoration center, where he demonstrated a unique technology that allows him to “see” through a sensor on his tongue.

“Literally, I see a black screen. I don’t have any sight, so every step forward to me is key,” Jernigan said, explaining the importance of a technology that allows him to perceive shape, size, location and motion through electrical stimulation of the tongue’s surface, chosen because it’s a good conductor.

“Now I can easily accomplish stationary tasks sitting down,” Jernigan said.

More than one in 10 combat wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan are eye injuries. Yet these problems receive less attention and fewer research dollars than other handicaps do, according to researchers and doctors at the center. The Louis J. Fox Center for Vision Restoration of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh want to change that, helped by a $3 million gift that made the center possible.

The money, to be matched by the university, comes from Louis Fox, a retired commodity and merchant banker who began losing his vision about 10 years ago after a central retinal vein occlusion — or an eye stroke.

Distraught over the loss of sight that made it impossible for him to continue his piloting hobby, Fox sought a solution. He was surprised to learn how few medical options were available to the blind, and after connecting with doctors and researchers at the University of Pittsburgh — his own alma mater — came forward with the money, helping establish the rare institution solely devoted to vision restoration research.

One of the many technologies the center will research is Jernigan’s BrainPort device, created by Wicab, a Middleton, Wis.-based company.

“It helps me keep an eye on everything that I’ve got in front of me. It helps me locate things more rapidly and it also helps me not spill my drinks, which I have a bad habit of doing,” Jernigan said, laughing.

Inserting a square white tab in his mouth and with the electronic device in his hand, Jernigan puts on dark Oakley sunglasses — a small camera above the nosepiece — and sits before a black coated cardboard backdrop. Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, the center’s executive director, places white felt across the center.

“Mike, what do you see?” Pollock asks.

“A horizontal line,” he answers.

Pollock creates a diagonal line.

“Mike, what do you see?” she asks again.

“Made a line that starts up here and goes down on an angle,” he answers, pointing to the floor.

Jernigan first tried the device in 2008, but only two weeks ago he received one to take home so he can help UPMC with its research.

“I just got married a couple of months ago. I’ve never seen my wife. I’ve never seen my son. It’s very difficult on a day-to-day basis,” Jernigan said. “Because of people like this, I have hope again.”

Ellie