A boxer is celebrating his greatest comeback from being partially blinded to having his eyesight make a miraculous full recovery.
Teenager Charlie Foster was hit by a freak accident causing him immediate loss of vision in one eye as he prepared to fight in the Welsh championships.
While sparring at Shotton Amateur Boxing Club in Deeside, the nineteen-year-old from Chester was blocking a shot and his glove came into contact with his left eye, causing him to go blind.
Charlie told JMU Journalism: “I was told my sight would come back within the first week but it didn’t. I wasn’t as shocked as I thought I would be, I just had to carry on. I even carried on sparring.
YouTube: Bernhard Sabel
“I attended numerous hospitals, had many tests, but nobody could help. My dreams of boxing as a professional were gone. It affected my work initially as I am a plumber, but my main problem was that I could no longer box. Training up to five times a week for the last 10 years, it was really tough to get my head around the concept of not doing it anymore.”
After 10 sessions and an emotional rollercoaster of a journey, Charlie got his sight back last month and is now training to do what he has always wanted to do since the age of nine.
He said: “I feel so grateful and so happy that my sight is 100% and I’m back boxing and feel fantastic. The experience of coming to Berlin and getting this treatment is hard to put in to words.
“Losing sight is bad for anyone, but at 18 it was awful. It did not just affect me it affected my whole family watching me go through it. I feel so grateful and so happy that I was able to go and wish more people knew about this clinic. I am still in contact with Dr Anton Fedorov by email and being monitored here in the UK to make sure everything stays stable.”