Doug Harkey's visits to a chiropractor had been helpful, but not spectacular, until Thursday, Jan. 3.

Harkey is a legally blind 38-year-old Dubuque resident who parachuted out of an airplane in 2006. Not even that adventure prepared him for what followed his Jan. 3 visit to chiropractor Tim Stackis.

"My left eye was watering for 45 minutes straight," Harkey said.

That left eye had been devoid of sight for 12 years.

While at a friend's house, Harkey wiped his eyes.

"While I wiped my right eye, I could see out of my left," Harkey said.

Goodbye blindness, hello restored sight.

"Oh my God, I can see!" Harkey told a friend.

"You always could," the friend answered.

"No, out of my LEFT eye," Harkey said.

Harkey and Stackis believe a chiropractic adjustment corrected a spinal bone spur problem, and that correcting the problem restored the lost sight.

"I am totally happy for Doug," Stackis said. "I've heard of cases of people regaining their sight, but I've never experienced something like Doug's magnitude (of restored sight). Miracles can happen and some of those

Doug Harkey tells his story to TH staffers Dave Kettering and Jeremy Portje

miracles are pretty big."

Harkey's fiancee, Gina Connolly, has been visiting Stackis.

"I was skeptical about chiropractic," Harkey said.

He gave it a try, though, at Connolly's suggestion and after attending a new-patient class conducted by Stackis.

"Your nerve system controls and regulates every function of your body," said Stackis, who believes chiropractic care can influence healing throughout the body.

Harkey couldn't wait to have an eye doctor verify his regained vision. However, his regular doctor was unavailable, so Harkey visited Connolly's eye doctor, Dr. Lynn Lester, on Jan. 7.

"I am very excited for him," Lester said. "It's incredible."

Lester is not sure exactly what triggered the sudden vision improvement.

Harkey said Monday's tests revealed he now has 20/100 vision in his left eye.

Normal vision is considered 20/20 vision, meaning people can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance. People with 20/100 vision must be as close as 20 feet to see what a person with normal vision can see at 100 feet.

Lester told Harkey his left eye vision could reach 20/30 with the use of corrective lenses.

"He has the potential for even better," Lester said.

Harkey thought retinitis pigmentosis -- a degenerative disease that gradually attacks the retina -- would permanently rob sight from his left eye. His right eye had been reduced to tunnel vision, but recent surgery by Dr. Rommel Fuerste improved his right-eye sight to 20/40.

Fuerste declined to discuss the case of his patient, but Harkey relishes talking about his left eye and the future.

"I'll have everything back except my peripheral vision," he said, adding that he continues to have difficulty seeing forms in shadows. "In the daytime, it will be great to see everything."