Blind Lawyer Tests New Technology that Projects Images on Tongue
A Pennsylvania lawyer who lost her eyesight during her final year of law school is helping test new technology that uses low-volt impulses to transmit images to her tongue.
Natalie Ruschell, 51, usually uses a cane or guide dog to get around, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Recently, she navigated a basement maze of padded blocks and balls wearing glasses outfitted with a camera made by BrainPort Technologies. According to the company website, users often report that the images feel like they have been painted on the tongue with champagne bubbles.
Ruschell suffered a diabetes-related hemorrhage at the age of 23 that caused her to lose her vision. She became the first blind female lawyer in Pennsylvania in 1988.
Meanwhile, MagicValley.com has a feature on an 83-year-old Twin Falls, Idaho, lawyer who lost his eyesight in an accident in kindergarten. Harry Turner got through law school at the University of Idaho with the help of volunteer readers from the Delta Gamma sorority. He took an eight-year break from law practice in 1956 after he won an election to the state legislature. Now he handles work involving wills, trusts and contracts.
Twelve years ago, Turner married one of the women who read to him. “I liked her when I met her. I liked her when I married her, and I still like her,” Turner told MagicValley.com.
