A blind lawyer and his boss are aiming to complete 24 mountain peaks in 24 hours to show he can push his body “to the limit like everyone else can”.
Michael Smith, 33, from Finsbury Park in north London, will be tethered to his work colleague, Jack Stacy, 38, who lives in London Bridge, for 24 hours as they take on the challenge while raising £150,000 for SeeAbility, a charity offering support for those who live with sight loss or those who have a learning disability or autism.
Mr Smith, who lives with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), which is an inherited condition causing sight loss in the central part of the eyes, lost his sight 15 years ago and now lives with around 10% vision.
He will rely on Mr Stacy’s guidance as they attempt to climb 24 mountain peaks in the Lake District, including England’s tallest peak Scafell Pike, from September 7 to 8.
“In a great way, it’s a metaphor showing people in life that you’ve got all this great technology out there to help people now who can’t see terribly well, but you always need that human touch with you,” Mr Smith told the PA news agency.
“Jack, I trust tremendously at work, but I’m going to have to trust him even more when we’re summiting these peaks in 24 hours across the Lake District, so it’s going to require a huge amount of focus, concentration and communication the whole way through.
“I’m not able to see the ground beneath me, or where I’m planting my feet, so there’s going to be a bit of danger throughout, a lot of fatigue.
“Communication is going to be the greatest challenge involved here, and concentration.”
Mr Smith noticed his vision changing between 2009 and 2010 while he attended Barts and The London School of Medicine when he could not see the ball while playing football.
Doctors at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London diagnosed him with LHON where he found out he would “permanently lose all of the central eyesight in both eyes”.
Mr Smith feared he would not “live a very fulfilling life going forward” but said SeeAbility helped to “bring my hopes and dreams back” as he returned to university to study and train to be a lawyer.
“When I first lost my sight, I thought, really, it was curtains,” he said.
“I’m not able to independently navigate very well. I’m not able to independently read or see people’s faces, so it had a huge impact on my life,” he said.
“I wasn’t able to pursue the career that I set my sights on, and I went back to the drawing board, and charities like SeeAbility were instrumental in allowing me to really gain some ambition and gain my hopes and dreams back.”
Mr Stacy, who has been chairman of SeeAbility for one year, wanted to take on the striking challenge to celebrate the charity’s 225th anniversary while raising money.
He said the hardest part of the challenge will be ensuring he clearly communicates with Mr Smith throughout the whole day.
“We spend a lot of time together already, but this is going to push us to the limit,” Mr Stacy told PA.
“The hardest thing for me, I think, is it’s going to be a physically demanding challenge, but I’m going to have to be looking out for both Michael and I, telling him where to park his feet at every moment up and down.”
Mr Smith hopes his challenge will inspire people who live with sight loss and other disabilities to achieve their ambitions.
“I want to just show, despite my lack of sight, with a bit of help from Jack, I can summit 24 peaks and push my body to the limit like everyone else can,” he said.
To find out more about their fundraiser you can visit https://www.justgiving.com/page/jackandmichael and to learn more about SeeAbility you can visit https://www.seeability.org/
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