Disability Facts

Approximately 70,000 people in the U.S. are both blind and deaf!

A blind American man taught himself to navigate using echolocation. His hobbies include hiking and mountain-biking, and he has now trained over 500 students in his ‘tongue-click’ technique.

A woman with Down syndrome worked at Walmart for 16 years with glowing reviews. When a new scheduling system changed her shift, she asked to keep her old hours because eating dinner at irregular times made her sick. Walmart refused and fired her for "absenteeism." A jury took three hours to award her $125 million.

A teenager was drowning in a rip current at Pensacola Beach. Andrew Smith, a fisherman with a seizure disorder who can't swim, was the only person nearby who could help. He strapped a flotation device to his shark-fishing drone and flew it out. First drop missed. A bystander handed him a second float. Second drop - she grabbed it and held on.

The Terrible Towel is the gold rag every Steelers fan waves at every game. The team does not own it. Myron Cope invented it as a radio gimmick before a 1975 playoff game. He gave the entire trademark to a school for people with disabilities. His own son had lived there for years, and had never spoken a single word. Every official towel sold since has funded that school. Fans are still waving it, fifty years on.

Victor Robinson graduated Werner Enterprises' own truck driving school, earned his CDL, and obtained a federal exemption allowing him to drive commercially. When he applied to Werner for a job, their VP of Safety told him flat out they wouldn't hire him because he was deaf. A jury awarded him $36 million.

Rick Hoyt had cerebral palsy, unable to speak or move. Doctors said he belonged in an institution. His parents refused. At 12, engineers built him a computer. In 1977 he asked his father Dick to push him through a 5 mile race. That night he typed: Dad, when I'm running, it feels like I'm not handicapped. Dick kept pushing him for 1,000 more races. 32 Boston Marathons. Six Ironmans.

In 1928 America had no guide dog schools. A blind twenty-year-old trained six weeks in Switzerland with a German shepherd he renamed Buddy, then came home to skeptical reporters. He crossed West Street, a waterfront run of ten-ton trucks, and the dog took him over. He helped found The Seeing Eye a year later. It still breeds and trains its own dogs.