self
Rosie Ifould
Daniel Kish could ride a bike by the time he was six. On its own, that doesn’t sound very remarkable, but Daniel Kish had been blind since he was a toddler. Born with retinoblastoma, an aggressive form of cancer, Kish’s doctors removed both his eyes before he was two. He’s now a campaigner and a pioneer of ‘echolocation’ – using sound to ‘see’ the world. In talks he describes how he woke up from the surgery, having lost his sight, climbed out of his crib and began walking around the intensive care nursery. At home he would climb fences and career down the road on his bike, crashing into things. The neighbours were apparently outraged – how could his mother let him do such dangerous things? But his mother says that all she could think to reply was, ‘How could I not?’