But after falling in her home in south Florida and injuring her neck, her sight reappeared.
She had to have an operation on her arm and back and believes this is what corrected her vision.
Mary said: ‘In the mornings, I get up, and I look out here and the sun is coming through the trees, and the beams [are] coming down.
‘Oh, God, it’s so wonderful to see.’
Doctors believe Mary’s car accident may have blocked up an artery in her spine, which caused her to go blind. Neurosurgeon Dr John Afshar, who operated on her, said: ‘I’ve never seen it, never heard of it.
‘When we give that extra amount of blood flow by unkinking the vessel, it could have re-established the blood flow, but this is all theoretical.’
The 70-year-old is calling her new sight a ‘miracle’ and is overjoyed at seeing her family again.
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