A workman has been left partially blind when his eye went ‘rusty’ after being impaled by a tiny fragment of metal.
The patient, who has been given the pseudonym ‘Mr Zou’, says he did not care too much about the tiny metal chip that entered his right eye, despite it causing him some discomfort.
He was prescribed various eye drops but never thought to seek expert help until his vision began to deteriorate two months ago to the point of blindness.
Professor Li Chaopeng, head of ophthalmology at the First People’s Hospital of Huai’an City in East China’s Jiangsu Province, has now found and removed the iron speck, which measured just 1 by 4 millimetres in an operation took place on 7th January.
But the seemingly harmless fragment had also caused spots of rust to develop on the patient’s eyeball leading to his loss of sight.
The medic said: “CT scans revealed a foreign body in his eye. We found it and removed it in surgery, during which we discovered that it had created several spots of rust on his eyeball.”
Professor Li added: “His eye is suffering from severe inflammation. Had we not removed the foreign body right away, his vision would have suffered even further to the point of not being able to perceive light.”
Zou, who is now recovering in the hospital, said: “A year ago while working in a factory, an iron fragment flew into my eye.”
He added: “I can sense light and brightness, but I can’t see a thing.”
Professor Li has admitted treatment of his rusting eye to try and restore the vision will be “very tricky”.
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Story By: Scott Feng, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: AsiaWire