Seeing RED

Special glasses give boy a new look at life

Published 7:26 am Wednesday, June 30, 2021

A Nicholasville, Kentucky, boy was seeing red recently while in Cincinnati. It wasn’t because he was angry as he watched the Cincinnati Reds lose 3-2 to the Atlanta Braves on Friday at Great American Ball Park.

Twelve-year-old Colton Hurst was happy and amazed at the same time after his parents gave him a special pair of glasses as an early birthday present, and when he put them on he saw the color red.

While this may not be anything special to most people, for Hurst it was a monumental moment in his life because he was born color blind.

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It was the first time Hurst has ever seen color, and he couldn’t stop looking in all directions after putting on the glasses.

“Red. Everything was red. (My parents) said ‘can you try on these glasses for me real quick,” Colton said. “I put them on and they were color blind glasses.”

And the excitement of the special glasses continued all night as Colton kept wearing them even after the game.

“I will remember seeing red for the first time. It shocked me whenever I put them on,” he said. “I was trying to figure out how this was possible. I didn’t know they would work.”

Colton’s father Jason Hurst handed him the EnChroma glasses that were developed in the early 2000s. Jason filmed Colton putting on the gift, and his reaction in this priceless moment became very emotional for everyone.

“I’m ugly crying, (his mother) is ugly crying, everybody else around us, people who didn’t even know us is ugly crying,” said Jason.

Watching the Reds play as his first opportunity to see color was the perfect scenario for the life-changing gift.

“I’m just thinking, ‘Wow! He can finally see what we see,” said Jason. “It’s stuff like that we take for granted. We see it every day.”