ALDERGROVE, B.C. — When Brett Devloo was 16, his focus was skateboarding, until he suddenly and permanently went blind.
“I lost my vision like that,” Brett snaps his fingers. “[I was] sitting in the middle of history class.”
Brett was diagnosed with a rare DNA mutation that blocks 98 per cent of his vision.
“It’s like having a sun right in the middle of your sight,” Brett explains holding a fist in front of his eyes. “If you [look] left, it goes left. If you go right, it goes right. And everything else is really blurry.”
After seeing the doctor, it was really clear, nothing else would ever be the same.
“We all cried for like five minutes,” Brett says. “And then my first words where, ‘What are we going to do?‘”
The first thing Brett wanted to do was get back on his beloved skateboard. Thanks to muscle memory he could still ride, but he felt timid at first not being able to see where he was going.
“I had to be much quicker with my reflexes,” Brett says, before laughing. “And be way more ready to land on my face.”
Brett picked himself up after every fall and learned how to feel around the space he was set to skate with his hands or his cane, and walk the route, before flying forward.
“It feels great, and it makes me feel like some things don’t change,” Brett smiles. “I’m normal when I skate.”
Although, 13 years after losing his sight, Brett is finding his life is far better than normal.
“I’m pretty grateful I went blind,” Brett says. “If I could see I would have just been a regular small-town guy.”
Instead, Brett tours Canada and the U.S. as a sponsored skateboarder known as TBK, or The Blind Kid. He also works as a motivational speaker in schools, and raises money to donate iPads with accessibility software to children with vision loss.
“Losing my vision, ironically gave me the sight to see that the world is a lot bigger and there’s more out there.”
There’s more obstacles to overcome, more people to inspire, and no more excuses, Brett says, for not achieving your goals.
“You can literally just do it,” Brett raises his hands in the air and smiles. “That’s it!”
