Jay Blake

Jay Blake
Photograph of Jay Blake
When Jay Blake’s life changed after his accident, he was determined to make the most of it – and follow his dream.

By Jerome Forman

In one explosive moment, Harry J. Blake’s life changed forever. In May 1997 while at work as an automobile mechanic at a trucking company, the tire he was working on exploded in his face. He was thrown 15 feet into the air and landed on a concrete floor yards away with multiple fractures of his face. Jay, as everyone calls him, was 31 years old, would never see his two children again and would never drive a truck on the open road. His sight was torn from him, gone forever. He also lost the sense of smell and taste.

But, today, Jay considers himself lucky to be alive and loves every minute of it.

He was med-flighted to Boston from Cape Cod, examined and treated by a multitude of doctors, operated upon, at times not expected to live.

Jay says he “saw the white, bright light” that the had heard about. “I had a choice to live or die,” he says. “Do you want to stay or go,” a voice asked, and he chose life. He remembers being at the hospital and asking his brother two questions: “Am I alive?” and “Am I blind?”

“I was so close to death. It made me realize what life is all about. I took it for granted before, but now had a second chance,” he says. “It’s hard to see nothing. But life is precious.”

Jay works on a race car engine
Since his injury, Jay has worked on cars, used power tools, Jet-skied, water-skied, built wood projects – and has even driven a tractor-trailer in a sand pit. He did not and does not let his blindness defeat him. He truly has picked up the pieces and moved on.

There is no ignoring the enormous adjustments that he had to make. His marriage did not survive the accident. Many of his close friends shied away from him at first. It took them time to get used to the new Jay, took a while for him to get used to his new situation.

He often feels frustrated and different. He sometimes wishes he could change all that but knows he can’t.

“I have to be careful that I don’t stop going out into the world. Everything revolves around vision. It’s much more difficult, but you learn how to live in the world. You have to talk to other people. You can’t isolate yourself. I love people. I always have,” Jay says. “I refuse to let it beat me. Life’s too short. There’s a reason I’m here.”

Jay says that while he was in the hospital he felt it was vitally important for him to find someone else who had been through what he had, to find out what he had to do. Unfortunately, he never found that person. A contact was made but there was reluctance by the other to share his experience. Jay was on his own.

“It helps if you can accept what you can’t do,” he says, talking about the adjustment. He misses not seeing his children, not driving trucks, and not seeing women.

“You just can’t give up. If you’re willing to work hard, you’ll succeed.”

Jay spent six months at the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, Massachusetts. Besides learning various skills, he was asked to create a job for himself, to write about what he wanted to do.

Jay demonstrates how he can work on race-car engines while following his dream.

He wrote about owning a production race-car team and having a race-car shop in his backyard. He thought of it as a fantasy job, something that would probably never happen. But he soon realized that he could follow his dream and perhaps it could become real.

Jay got on the phone and made calls. The pieces are beginning to fall into place. He is one of the founders of Follow a Dream, Inc., a non-profit organization with a mission to bring the message of the power of positive thinking to people who have experienced catastrophic injuries or illnesses.
Jay Blake working on carJay will demonstrate how he can work on race-car engines while following his dream.

“It’s a matter of acceptance. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Bill Gates or a trash collector. We need each other. We have to have the garbage picked up. If we were all the same, the world wouldn’t work.”

Follow a Dream, Inc., is just getting off the ground. FAD will have a drag racing car soon and enter it in competitions. it will travel around the country with jay Blake educating the world that blindness need not stop you, that a catastrophic accident can be survived, that the power of positive thinking – something that jay truly believes in – is medicine for us all.

You can contact Follow A Dream at 41 Hillside Drive, Centerville, MA 02632, or check out the web site: www.followadream.net.

Reprinted here from Connections, Vol. 6, No. 5, January 2000 with permission. Connections is a journal written by and for people with disabilities and the elderly.

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