After a car accident in 1993, a US woman lost her  eyesight. But after being blind for 20 years, she has regained her vision after falling over and hitting her head at her home in Florida.

Mary Ann Franco, 70, gradually became blind after injuring her spine in a car accident in 1993.

According to media reports, after the accident, more than two decades later, she has regained her sight, although doctors are still puzzled and trying to find out how exactly this could have happened.

“I was fully blind – all I could see was blackness,” she told media.

“I was in my living room, going over to the door. My foot caught on a tile, and it flipped me. I hit my head in the back, and hit it on something else, maybe the fireplace,” she added.

Few weeks ago,she was admitted in hospital to recover from four hours of surgery on her neck. When she came back from the anaesthetic she realised her sight had returned.

Franco added “They gave me more medication and the next morning I could see all the trees and white houses below from my small window on my side in hospital.”

Neurosurgeon Dr John Afshar, who performed the operation, told ABC News that he had not expected Franco’s vision to be affected.

“The restoration of Mary Ann Franco’s vision is a true miracle,” he said. “I really don’t have a scientific explanation for it.”

Giving one of the reasons for the recovery of her sight, Dr Afshar told, the accident could have affected an artery and restricted blood flow to the part of the brain which controls vision.

“It could have been a result of the artery being kinked and then when we performed the surgery itself, we unknowingly probably unkinked that vessel re-establishing blood flow and, therefore, she could have regained her vision,” he said.

Franco said, she is very happy after being able to see her family once again. For her regaining her eyesight had changed how she thought of the world.

“Everything seems so much smaller to me, since I can see. I felt like the room was bigger than it was…but they weren’t as big as I thought,” she said.

“My sight is great now, although I went to the eye doctor and he said I had to have cataracts [operations] on both eyes. But I said no – I’ve got my eyesight back, I’m not having surgery now.”she told media.