Saving Lives with the Help of ZoomText

For many of us, the thought of being responsible for someone who is bleeding, broken or in the throes of a heart attack, would be a daunting task. For Pennsylvania Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) Josh Waldeck, that's the easy part. It’s the required trip report for each ambulance run that used to fill Josh with dread.

Born without retinal cones, Josh has trouble seeing fine detail, so using the computer to fill in the multi-field trip report was a challenging task. The independent young man had to ask for assistance from a coworker because he could not read the field names and struggled with the drop-down menus – a vital part of completing the patient record. That all changed back in 2004 when a counselor at the Pennsylvania Blind and Visual Services introduced Josh to ZoomText. Since then, Josh uses ZoomText with Pointer Enhancement enabled, allowing him to complete his trip reports with ease. Alleviating that stressful part of his day makes it possible for him to do the work he loves with even more enthusiasm.

In a healthy eye, the retina contains 6 to 7 million cones, which provide color sensitivity and allow us to perceive fine detail, and to adjust to rapid changes in the images we view. However, due to the lack of cones, Josh is unable to see these details, rendering him functionally blind.

Josh explains it this way, "If I'm standing with you in a field with trees ahead, you may be able to identify the type of trees you see, locate birds in the trees and even tell me what color the birds are. I just see trees." Life simply lacks definition. Fortunately ZoomText clarifies and sharpens his life at the computer screen.

Impressed with the usefulness of ZoomText and the fact that Ai Squared also offers a keyboard for people with low vision, Josh encourages others to "try ZoomText and see what it can do for you because there are so many great features." The fact that ZoomText 9.1 supports dual monitors is intriguing to Josh. Because he uses ZoomText at 2 times magnification, he learned that adding a second monitor to his computer setup would mean he could see the whole width of the screen in the magnified view, rather than just the half that he currently sees using one monitor. Even if he moves upward in magnification, dual monitor will still mean he sees twice as much. Josh appreciates that Ai Squared goes the extra mile to "find what people like us really need."

When asked how he ended up in the medical field, Josh reminisced about being a kid who was picked on in elementary school for being different. Over time, Josh consistently rose to the challenge whenever he was told he couldn't do something. At one point it was high school football. After being told he couldn't play he proved everyone wrong by playing well enough to make the all-star team.

At one point, Josh dreamed of a career on the gridiron, but somewhere along the way he fell in love with the "medical stuff". Of course, when he expressed an interest in becoming an EMT, there were those who said he couldn't do it. But today Josh supports his family doing just that. He and his wife, Anya, have a 3-year-old son, Joshua Junior, and a 20-month-old daughter, Joanie.

The next challenge for the Waldeck family is getting both parents through paramedic training. Because of the way teams are dispatched, Josh doesn’t always get to work as many hours as he would like as an EMT. Typically, an EMT is paired with a paramedic; the EMT drives while the medic works on the patient. However, Josh is unable to drive which limits his work opportunities. When he becomes a paramedic, his non-driver status will no longer affect his work schedule.

Users have told us for years that ZoomText is a life-saver, but this may be the first time the life-saver has been used by a life-saver like Josh Waldeck. The Ai Squared Team wishes the Waldeck family all the best.