Woman regains sight after being blind for 21 years

Doctors in Florida are trying to understand how a woman who was blind for 21 years has regained her sight.

Mary Ann Franco lost her sight after a serious car crash.

Recently, she fell in her home and injured her neck. After spinal surgery, she woke up in the hospital and could see.

"To see the sun and the clouds and the birds and the squirrels running up the light poles. You know, and there was a big hawk out there the other day," Franco said.

"She called me and said, 'Mary can see!'" Franco's brother Rocky Powell said. "I said, 'No! After 21 years?' I said, 'Wow!'"

Her neurosurgeon says it is truly a miracle. He thinks Franco's car accident may have kinked an artery in her spine, restricting blood flow to the part of her brain that controls vision.

When he performed surgery on her spine, he may have unwittingly unkinked the artery.