Regaining his Sight

Heroes Remember

Regaining his Sight

Transcript

Because by this time, I couldn’t walk. My legs had played out completely and I had been blind for two or three months. Ya, what happened with the blindness, is again we had a British medical major from the Indian Army there and he was able to get hold of what he said was, what is it vitamin E that fixes your eyes, I think, ya. He came in one morning, he said he’s got this little bottle of stuff. He says, “I can give you injections if you want,” he says, “it could help if it is actually is vitamin E. It could do nothing if it’s water or it could kill you if it’s something else, I don’t know, I have no way of finding out.” He says, “What do you want to do?” I said, “Give it a shot, I can’t lose much.” I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t see, I wasn’t in great shape, you know, you gamble. And after about a week of these shots once a day, I woke up one morning and I could see the little glimmer of light where the window was in this room, and then in about a week I could see again.

Description

Mr. Gyselman describes enduring three weeks of blindness, and being offered a series of injections of an unidentified serum. Choosing to take the gamble, his eyesight returns after a week.

Harry Gyselman

Harry Gyselman was born on February 11, 1920 in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan. His father left the insurance business to farm, but went broke during the depression. After his father’s death, Mr. Gyselman worked odd jobs to support his family. Initially interested in joining the Air Force, he opted to join a friend who was enlisting with the Winnipeg Grenadiers. Mr. Gyselman was a truck driver during the battle of Hong Kong, and was in the POW camp in Niigata, Japan when the war ended. He has the distinction of being the first Canadian POW to reach mainland North America after the war.

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