An app called "Be My Eyes" is connecting blind users with volunteers to help them with visual tasks.

It's accessible in 180 different languages with more than eight million volunteers. One of those users is Jay Blake, a mechanic on Cape Cod who is the only blind crew chief in the National Hot Rod Association.

Blind mechanic Jay Blake

Blake is the founder of Follow A Dream, an NHRA race team that drives funny cars, dragsters with the body of a car. Soon, the team will move to the top circuit in NHRA Funny Car.

Blake has been blind since he was injured in an accident in 1997.

"That afternoon, a wheel and tire assembly off of a forklift exploded in my face, threw me 45 feet through the air," said Blake.

He was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where doctors spent 11 hours reconstructing his face. He ended up with two prosthetic eyes.

"Three-and-a-half weeks later, I came home with no eyes, no sight, no smell, no taste. A bad day at the office," he said.

"Drag racing was my love, my dream," Blake said. After his accident, his friend took him to a race, and it inspired him to own his own team.

"I wanted to motivate kids to get an education and to believe in themselves and to follow their dream. Hence, the start of Follow a Dream," Blake said.

When he's working on the cars in his Marston Mills shop or out at the track, the area is a controlled environment that helps him to operate independently. At his shop, the radio is always on. The sound becomes his North Star and allows him to have a better understanding of where he is situated in the room.

"Be My Eyes" app   

Navigating on his own can become difficult when he has to read a label or measure something. That's when he turns to the "Be My Eyes" app. It contacts a volunteer with the company who will have access to his phone camera. The volunteer can then help to guide him through the situation.

"My eyes don't work, but I know what I am looking for, so all I need is somebody's eyes to tell me what's there," Blake said.

The app was created by Hans Jorgen Wiberg, a blind man in Denmark. 

"I met a young blind guy, and he was telling me how he was using FaceTime when he needed a pair of eyes, and then he said, 'But I always have to think about who to call,'" Wiberg said.

Soon, the company will be partnering with Meta to expand the services to utilize special Ray-Ban sunglasses with cameras in the frames.

"Now you can say, 'Hey Meta, ' and then say 'Be my eyes,' and then we make a call directly from the glasses, and volunteers will be looking through the camera," Wiberg said.