KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It was eight years ago when things went dark for Romia Hall.
"I lost my sight in 2014, an altercation where I was stabbed in the face through the eye," Hall said. "The knife actually punctured my brain at the same time."
Hall said while he was in the hospital, he had thoughts of suicide, but his sons and his faith kept him going.
"He let me know I could keep going and he'd be there because one thing is true... by myself, I'm an ordinary man, but I serve a supernatural God, which thus together makes me Superman and gives me the strength to get through every day," Hall said.
Superman is what one of his sons called him.
"When I was in the hospital, my son said, 'You're Superman. You survived and got stabbed' and so since then, we've been doing the Superman thing and God has gotten me through a lot," Hall said.
Eight years later, Hall is adjusting to his new normal.
"I might make it look easy, but it's not easy, moving around in complete darkness," he said.
Hall works at Alphapointe, managing a machine that makes prescription bottle caps.
"Whenever you saw my head moving back and forth, I was listening to the different sounds, making sure, nothing was sounding wrong," Hall said.
The caps are for prescription bottles for veterans across the country. On them shows the suicide prevention hotline number.
"When they pick up that bottle, they can look right at that cap and it has the suicide hotline number," Hall said. "It's very special to me because I had the thought of suicide before when I was in the hospital. And as you know, we have so many military veterans who would get out of service and have PTSD ."
Hall says it is a way to show that these veterans are cared for and not to give up.
"When you call that number, you see someone cares," Hall said. "They want you around, they love you. They fought for our country, so the least I can do is go put numbers on something that can help them save their lives."
Hall lifts dozens of the cap-filled boxes each day.
"I do about 220,000 caps a day, which is 110 boxes, but I'm actually lifting 220 boxes because I'm doing it on one end and the other end," Hall said. "They're each about 40 pounds."
Now, he's putting his lifting skills to the test, as he prepares for the USA Powerlifting KC Metro Rookie/Novice Showdown competition Sunday, April 9.
"I know at this competition, I'm going to be going against sighted people," Hall said. "I would be there not only representing myself, but also the visually impaired that we may not be able to see, but we can do the same things that you do."
The competition will be at William Jewell College, a place Hall knows very well.
"20 years ago, I was there running track," Hall said. "I would've never thought 20 years later, I would be going there blind lifting weights and it's been almost eight years now, and I never thought while I was in the hospital bed that eight years later, I'd be doing things like this."
Now, sight unseen, he's making sure he doesn't set any limits on what he's capable of doing.
"My motto is, they say the sky's the limit, when I look up, I don't see a sky," Hall said. "So there's no limit to what I can do, absolutely none."
Hall, who can bench 350 pounds, says he looks forward to hopefully winning Saturday's competition and one day, becoming an athlete for the Olympic team.
