Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
CENTERVILLE &mdsh; A Centerville teenager has a dream to race cars, but a dodgeball injury that damaged his vision has presented a few setbacks to his life goal.
Andy Nish, 15, has known since he was in diapers he wanted to race cars. He has since won five championships racing his go-kart, and he loves being able to take corners fast.
"It takes your mind, your body and your whole spirit," Andy said. "My ultimate goal is to get to Formula 1. But, I also want to race the Indy 500 and I want to race my dad's streamliner."
Andy's father and grandfather are also involved in racing. His family is well-known in racing circles after they set speed records in a streamliner car on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Andy has been around racing his entire life.
"We were taking them to Bonneville when they were in their diapers," said Andy's father, Mike Nish. "Literally."
However, after a dodgeball injury, Andy lost the vision in his left eye, making it difficult for him to race. He didn't even tell his family about his impaired vision for a while.
"His eye was just red one day," Mike said. "I asked him, 'Why is your eye so red?' And he said, 'Well, I'm probably working it too hard because I can't see out of the other one.' And I was like, 'What?!' "
His eye was just red one day. I asked him, 'Why is your eye so red?' And he said, 'Well, I'm probably working it too hard because I can't see out of the other one.' And I was like, 'What?!'
–Mike Nish, Andy's father
After a visit to the Moran Eye Center in Salt Lake City, doctors discovered that Andy suffered from a detached retina, which had a small hole in the center of it.
"We don't see it very often, but when we do, it causes severe loss of vision and requires surgery to repair," said Dr. Paul Bernstein.
Dr. Bernstein started by peeling away scar tissue membranes to try and stabilize Andy's eye. It took several surgeries, and several more surgeries are expected.
"We can improve his vision, but we will never get him back to 20/20 vision," Bernstein said.
Andy said he missed most of last year's racing season because of his eye, but he said it was difficult sitting on the sidelines watching his sister.
"Up until last year, I had never missed a race in eight years," Andy said. "I was sitting on the barrier just watching and I was thinking to myself, 'Why won't my eye heal faster?' Ya know?"
During his eye's healing process, Andy has started practicing racing again to test his eye during the laps. It has given his doctor a few different ideas for surgery and repair.
"One thing we may do is leave the eye filled with silicon oil," Bernstein said. "It acts as sort of a shock absorber in someone who is as active as he is in driving carts."
Andy, his father and his doctor are all hoping that his eye will heal and that checkered flags will be in his future.
"I'm hoping it'll be good enough to do whatever he wants to do in his life, no matter what it is," Mike said.
