A seven-year-old boy from Nashik almost lost his vision after a sharp edge of a steel ruler pierced his right eye. A team of doctors from a Mumbai hospital operated on the injured eye and the child has regained nearly 70% vision after the surgery. Doctors say eye injuries among children are extremely common and the damage is often severe.
The child was injured on March 13 when two of his classmates were fighting over the scale and it flung out of their hands. “It hit my son’s eye. At that time, the teacher did not realise the severity of the injury,” the boy’s father said.
The parents took him to local doctors, who said there was considerable damage to the cornea and referred him to Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai.
“Our medical investigations revealed that he had severe internal bleeding. He could just perceive light,” eye surgeon Dr. Phiroze Patel, who operated on the child, said.
The two-hour surgery involved suturing the corneal tear. “The centre of the cornea was ruptured, and when we examined him further, we discovered that his retina was detached,” Dr. Patel said. The child’s stitches were removed last week and he has 70% vision. “We are expecting a full recovery,” he said.
A 2016 paper in the Asia Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology said an estimated 3.3 to 5.7 million paediatric eye injuries occur worldwide every year, and nearly 90% of them are reportedly preventable.
“Eye injuries in children are very common but the severity ranges. We get the most number of cases during festivals like Diwali and Holi due to fire crackers and colours,” said Dr. Radhika Krishnan from Aditya Jyot Hospital in Wadala. She said on Thursday, they operated on a four-year-old girl who injured her eye after a pencil pierced it.
Doctors say most eye injuries can be prevented with more awareness among parents and teachers.
