It’s a situation most of us have encountered at one time or another.

You see a person walking down the sidewalk with a cane, approaching a street and you feel inclined to offer help. But should you?

"As soon as you hear the word blind, everything else in your brain is already bringing up all the stigmas and all the other things about the negativity of being a person that's disabled," said Joe Mielczarek, a counselor at the Visually Impaired Program at NTC. "The loss of sight, doesn't mean loss of brains."

"People feel sorry for you all the time and I don't think that's necessary," LeRoy Wolf, a man who’s blind, said.

"Someone will come up and grab my arm and say ‘can I help you cross,’ and if it's a busy street I may solicit help, but if its one I can handle myself, I'll politely say no thank you. I can manage myself,” said Jim Unger.

The reason behind these visually impaired people saying they don’t want help is that many of them want nothing more than to be independent.

"I'm not pig-headed, as the old saying is, but I was always, for so many years - for 49 years - didn't have these problems. To adjust to them was very hard,” said Todd Rasmussen. "It would take a lot to have someone help me and I think that's my own ego, my own way. I want to make it my own way."

"People always want to help. I think a lot of them their intentions are really good, but it doesn't help you when they do everything for you,” LeRoy said. ”You have to learn to do a lot of things by yourself - for yourself. Otherwise I think you can get very stagnant."

And when it comes down to it, these people living with visual disabilities in our area say if they ever need help, don’t worry – they’ll ask you for it.

"I want to make sure I'm safe and I think if I was ever not safe, I would ask someone,” Todd said. “Otherwise, I want to use the tools I've been given - my own intelligence - to make it my own way."

"Shopping I definitely ask for help from customer service when I go grocery shopping and picking put presents for Christmas," Jim said. "Most of these are reading things, labels, cards, prices, finding an exact item in the store."

Jim and the others all say they are just grateful knowing that they living in communities where if they would ever need help, it would be there.

“Out of Sight” will continue Tuesday night on NewsChannel 7 at 10, where these people living with visual impairments will explain how the loss of sight has impacted them for the better and caused them to strive toward new goals.