A 21-year-old firefighter had the chance to view the vivid colors of his country’s flag, first time in his life. This happened after his colleagues donated money to buy him a pair of corrective glasses for colorblindness.
Spencer Caradine, who is a firefighter in Douglas County, Georgia, didn’t know that he was red-green colorblind until his friend and co-worker Jordan Gardner took notice.
The two men went out on a hiking trip a few months ago. Gardner tried to point out a green object that was next to a red barn – but Caradine said that he couldn’t tell the difference between the two. Gardner later confirmed his friend’s colorblindness after he got Caradine to unknowingly take a vision test. He and the other firefighters then raised money so they could get Caradine a pair of EnChroma glasses, which cost upwards of $300 on Amazon.com.
After his colleagues surprised him with the glasses, they took Caradine outside in front of the American flag so that it would be the first thing he saw in full color.
Once he put on the glasses, Caradine started to cry.
“It was so much different from what I’ve ever seen,” he told WSB-TV. “It was more beautiful.”
Since Gardner published a video of his friend’s reaction to Facebook, it has been viewed thousands of times – and it’s not hard to see why.
The post read: “One of my best friends has never seen what the world really looks like until today. Spencer always said the first thing he wanted to see in color was the American flag so… we made it happen. None of us are emotional people but this morning got the best of all of us.”
