Blind skateboarder launches video, hopes Ellen will take a look
'To be honest, when I went blind, it didn't really faze me, I wasn't scared,' says Brett Devloo, 18
A Winnipeg skateboarder is trying to get attention on social media by releasing a video about his life and his philanthropy to support kids with visual impairment.
Brett Devloo went blind in 2011 when he was 15-years-old. Now 18, Devloo recalls sitting in his history class reading, when all of a sudden, he couldn't read his notes anymore. He said the cause was a genetic mutation called Lhon Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy.
The video, released Tuesday, details how Devloo — who calls himself the Blind Kid, or TBK — will never stop skateboarding because it's the one thing that he feels cannot be taken away from him.
"To be honest, when I went blind, it didn't really faze me, I wasn't scared. It didn't really bother me at all, I just couldn't wait to go skating again," he said.
Devloo told CBC's Radio Noon that he adopted the Blind Kid moniker because he wanted to embrace the "there goes the blind kid" whispers he heard in the halls of his school after he lost his sight.
"I owned it, you know," he said.
His vision loss encouraged him to do things bigger and better, adding the challenges he has faced will all be worth it if he can inspire at least one other person to make a difference, Devloo said.
Devloo started a clothing line and $1 per item sold goes toward buying iPads for other kids with vision impairment.
Devloo has worked on the video for over a year. His dream is for it to go viral and to end up on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
The video currently has more than 10,000 views on Facebook after 18 hours.