Page 21 - Optic Nerve News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

You know, i'm just frying to do the best i can. then i go in and memorize the citations and let them decide if i know what i'm doing. >> reporter: lately he has been busier than ever. recently won a $9 million judgment for one of his clients. >> the blindness, i just couldn't even imagine. i don't even, i can't even try to think what that would be like. >> reporter: memorizing things and going into court, what is that -- a pretty determined guy. >> yeah, i agree. >> reporter: but adapting, even successful adapting using a talking typewriter for example. wasn't enough for john sutton. as he wai...

Affiliated research institute in boston where a renowned researcher had regenerated the optic nerve in mice using stem cell therapy and drugs, human trials would be next. so in march 2008, almost three years to the day after his son was arrested, sutton and his girlfriend kathy were on the cold, rain swept streets of boston on the way to an appointment at the clinic. >> okay. there is a chin rest in front of you. a doctor evaluated, sutton's one intact eye and discovered though the nerve was destroyed, the rest of the eye, theoretically at least could work. >> my son is in jail, charged with f...

>> reporter: you were thinking, maybe they can do it for you. >> i said i am in the right spot. >> reporter: he talked to the leading researcher working on optic nerve repair. >> have you done any studies with severed optic nerves. >> reporter: he peppered them with questions like he was cross-examining witnesses. mike gilmore, president of the research clinic offered sutton a glimmer of hope. >> we will be able to regenerate an optic nerve not so much a question of can we, when can we? >> reporter: and it was a good news/bad news sort of day. >> i do not want to mislead you or provide false h...

The tip of his ring finger was blown off. other shots hit his thumb and shoulder. >> there were six pretty good sized bullet holes. >> reporter: when he was well enough to talk to detectives, sutton told them what he could. the story of a man who barely witnessed the attack that killed his wife and almost killed him. he was a former college swimmer, so he was watching an olympic diving event in the master bedroom, he said. >> next thing i know, somebody was standinghe hat or visor, black shirt, black pants. face shaded by the visor. and open fired. all i really remember was one bang. >> report...

As he waited for his son's long delayed trial he pursued with something like an obsession, a quest to regain his eyesight. and most people might have given up by then. can't do anything. live with it. >> not even close. i won't take no for an answer. >> reporter: some of the best hospitals in the country, sutton had been told there was simply nothing to be done. he would be blind for life. the bullets had permanently destroyed his optic nerve. john had heard about a landmark break through at harvard affiliated research institute in boston where a renowned researcher had regenerated the optic n...