Blind man teaches himself to skateboard through video game

A blind man taught himself to skateboard through touch, feel and memories of playing video games. Coco Atama began losing his vision before he could even form memories, after he was diagnosed with Leber’s Congenital Amauros, a rare eye disease, at just 10 months old. On his seventh birthday, Coco was handed his first skateboard, a gift that would turn his life around and provide him with what he calls the greatest possible therapy. The 22-year-old, from Burbank, California, has been skating for the past 15 years in an effort to improve his mental health, teaching himself tricks through feel, touch and playing the video game Tony Hawk Pro-Skater. Being the ‘first and only’ blind child in his school, he said he was treated ‘more like a doll’ than a person as children and teachers were fascinated by his condition. He said: ‘Other kids were fascinated with me [in school], but not in a good way. ‘Even though I could see a little bit, I didn’t have any peripheral vision, so they kids would constantly take my stuff and watch and laugh as I scrambled around to find it. ‘But when I got my first skateboard, skating would become like therapy and my own escape from the world.