After losing an eye in an accident, a man finds his calling by working with first responders in Danbury
DANBURY — As a child, Danny Blumberg dreamed of becoming a police officer.
That dream changed, however, after losing his right eye at 22 in an accident on his family’s farm.
But Blumberg is working with law enforcement — by helping police officers and other first responders through his job as a financial planner.
Danny Blumberg is a partner with his father, John Blumberg, at TrueNorth Financial Services, which moved to Lake Avenue in Danbury from White Plains, N.Y., in February. John Blumberg founded TrueNorth 40 years ago, and Danny Blumberg’s mother and brother also work there.
“We do full-service financial planning, so I help people with any financial products they need, whether it’s protecting their family, saving for retirement or doing things for their kids,” said Danny Blumberg, now 33 and living in Pawling, N.Y.
“I am protecting and serving my guys, just in a different way,” Blumberg said. “I’m not wearing a badge with them every day, but I have over 500 first responders and military personnel as clients. So that’s how I’m still in that world.”
John Blumberg said his son has unlimited energy.
“He just keeps going all day long,” John Blumberg said. “He’s definitely turned a tragedy into triumph.”
Since he was young, Danny Blumberg said he has loved helping people.
“We grew up doing a lot of charity work,” he said. “I get this high inside from making people feel good, giving them a break from everything that they’re going through.”
He grew up around animals on his family’s farm in Brewster, N.Y., where for many years he taught kids how to ride horses. “We’ve raised draft horses and oxen my whole life,” Blumberg said.
To build his resume for a job in federal law enforcement, he interned with a local police department while in college. He graduated from Radford University in Virginia in 2013 with a business management degree.
But his life changed in June 2014, when a steel cable wire he was cutting snapped and went through his right eye while he was working at his family’s horse farm in Pawling, N.Y.
Blumberg underwent an eight-hour surgery, where doctors found he had two major eye infections.
“When I had picked up my cutter from the dirt, I cut the wire and the wire put the dirt into my eye. I ended up with E. coli and bacillus, which are two very aggressive infections that ultimately led me to losing my vision permanently,” he said.
They sent him home with instructions to administer a half-dozen antibiotic drops every hour, around the clock.
“After a few days we realized that this was not possible, so they admitted me back into the hospital,” he said. “Once the infections were under control a couple weeks later, they performed my second surgery, a corneal transplant.” After a couple weeks, he had a retina replacement.
‘A big stomach punch’
After the three surgeries were completed and the infections were under control, the doctors told him they couldn’t save his right eye.
“They said my vision was gone forever. The infections killed off the end of the optic nerve,” he said. “That was a big stomach punch.”
Blumberg said he knew then that he couldn’t work as a police officer. “You can’t even be in federal law enforcement if you’re color blind, let alone blind in one eye,” he said.
About a month later, as Blumberg was recovering, he temporarily lost vision in his left eye due to a rare autoimmune disease called sympathetic ophthalmia. “It means there’s no immune system in your eyes. … My body was killing off my left eye because of what was happening to the right,” he said.
“He went completely blind for three months. It was unbelievable,” John Blumberg said.
The Blumbergs eventually found a doctor who was able to restore the vision in Danny Blumberg’s left eye. He now takes strong immune suppressants and will for the rest of his life, he said.
He joined his father in business at TrueNorth. “I went with him to work for a couple days, trying to figure it all out,” Danny Blumberg said.
It didn’t take long before Danny Blumberg said he “became completely obsessed” with the field, and he and his dad now work side by side every day. He said he’s on a mission to continue helping people through his new calling.
“People started thanking me. I was protecting people. I was helping people,” he said. “I was in a lot of hospitals, schools, police departments … helping people with things like life insurance, retirement planning for their kids — and that became my world.”