The "oops my eye" thread.

[Akeyla]

While everything below is and was true at it's time, new medical information has shown that this was not laser damage. Regardless, treat them with respect.

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Yeah so, I'm obviously not a regular poster here, but I read a lot and have built quite a few 445nm units for friends, a 660, a 532, etc. I also have good OD4 glasses. In-fact when I first got the glasses I placed them in front of a 1.4W 445 to see if the beam would go through, I was surprised to see the glasses start to melt where the beam was hitting it. So I know the dangers, and have proper protection

Of course great glasses aren't worth a shit if you're not wearing them at the time. 1am Friday morning I'm star pointing with a chart, not an (complete) idiot, not stupid enough to aim at anything I don't know what it is first. Well there's this black mesh with about a 1cm spacings in it that I'm shining the beam through. I had the laser placed through an opening, however I moved the beam, and light flashed off a black thread under a foot from my eye.

Next couple of days I notice a spot in my vision of my right eye, like if I'm reading and I close the left eye, letters on the page will disappear from the spot on my right eye.

This morning I saw an eye doctor, hoping against hope but going in fairly certain I had given myself flash burn. I told him what happened, and that I'm not talking about some crap WalMart laser here. Did some eye tests, cover this eye what can you read, cover that eye what can you read. Was interesting I could read better with my left eye than right.

So they dilate my pupils and mister MD gets up close and personal with his tech stuff. That was an interesting experience, having a light stuck directly into your eye, a horizontal beam, not unlike the shape of a 445nm beam, and you can see it pan back and forth, I could see the blood vessels in my own eye while he was doing it.

So the verdict, I flash burned part of my retina. I still have 20/20 vision, just a dead spot that my brain will try to correct over time, and the eye -might- heal, but that it's likely permanent.

Here's where I got lucky, the burn was literally under a mm from my fovea. The doctor said had it been off just that much more I'd have 20/400 vision and that my right eye would be basically shot. I go back in a month to see if anything has changed, I asked about possibly surgeries, but he said there's little that can be done.

I've read the horror thread on here and seen the pictures of the poor fellow who's retina was just a huge black burn mark, my picture looked a lot more normal but you can see the burn on it. I don't have a copy of it today, but I will post it when I get it.

TLDR;

Eye protection isn't worth anything if you're not wearing it and you'll get flash burned from something totally innocent and unexpected, learn from my mistake.

 

[NightExplorer96]

^Thanks for sharing man. I once had a "200mW labeled" 532nm laser & was playing with it one night and it fell and the beam flew right past my eye...worst part...I wasn't wearing any safety goggles(since I don't own any). To this day I realized I lucky I am and refuse to buy anything over 5mW until I buy proper safety goggles etc

Edit: Best of luck on the recovery!

-Alex

 

[IsaacT]

I had a close call with my DL Spartan 589nm Laser where it actually hit over my eye. Luckily it was a quick flash so no harm done, but I am glad it wasn't my 1.7W 469nm that did it haha.

Note: I am more careful with my 1.7W laser than my 50mW laser which is the only reason that happened. Rest assured, such a situation would not have occurred with a higher power system

 

[Benm]

You seem to have mixed luck akeyla. A fluke reflection like that making it back in your eye is something that rarely happens - i wouldn't have expected the fence to be -that- reflective either... you must have hit it from the worst possible angle.

You are however very lucky that you werent actually staring at this fence, otherwise the beam would have hit your fovea and you might have very serious loss of central/3d vision.

One thing i would want to suggest after this story: If you are pointing at stars and such, use a a -green- laser. That is most visible per mW of output power, requiring less power to do the job, and resulting in less damage if things go wrong.

Obviously you cannot use lasers to point out stars while wearing safety goggles since you wouldn't see anything - which makes this sort of accident hard to prevent. I suppose using a bright flashlight to check for anything overly reflective would be a good precaution, but that is with 20/20 hindsight - i hope your eyesight returns to normal over time though.

Perhaps it may not, but in that case the type of injury is not that bad - perhaps you've lost some peripheral vision in one eye, but as said your brain will compensate for this and the other eye will fill it in when in range. You'll probably be okay in all aspects of everyday life after a while, but i'm sure you got scarily close to a cripling hit.

 

[Akeyla]

It wasn't a fence persay, it was kind of like the fabric material they use in batting cages (trying to think of an analogy), where you can easily see through it and put your fingers through it, not metal, it was black fabric. It was more a slip of the hand, but being that it was 1am my pupils I'm sure were fully dilated to look at the stars.

The small spot is almost , just missed it, dead center in the field of vision of my right eye, so at least for now, it's hard to ignore. I wish it where on the peripheral area.

It is scary, because it was totally unexpected and just that perfect reflected light angle, and had I been looking just a tiny bit more toward it, that would be that. More than anything I'm just angry at myself for letting it happen.

Here's a link to the poor chap I was talking about
http://laserpointerforums.com/f53/hit-eye-1000mw-445nm-blue-laser-69469.html

I had my other ones out with me that night, a 532 and a 660 that I was using also, just decided to "have fun" with the 445 also. I have a new found respect for the power to beam visibility of 445 vs 532 now that is for sure.

 

[Hitokiri Battousai]

I hope you'll get better soon.

 

[Akeyla]

Stopped by the Dr and grabbed the picture of my retina. Added it to the first post and indicated the areas on it. You can see just how close I came to losing sight in that eye. Still wearing the eye patch, my right eye is still slightly dilated from the Atropine drop, but it has helped the headache. Tomorrow it should no longer be dilated and hopefully the headache will go away. Either-way, while unlucky, I'm still counting myself as fortunate.

 

[IsaacT]

Did he say anything about healing or getting better?

 

[Akeyla]

Yeah, it's pretty much permanent. I was light-hearted about it when I went in, he actually said it looks similar to types of intentional burns used in eye surgery, just in a very bad location; I basically gave myself laser eye surgery.

It -might- get better, but it's not likely. I'm going back in about a month and a half to get it looked at again, more to see if it could do damage to any surrounding tissue.

My vision isn't ruined by any means, I still have 20/20, it's just more of a distraction to me now, like looking through sunglasses with a tiny smudge on them. Sometimes I see it and sometimes I don't. Ultimately the brain will help correct but I suspect I will have a life long reminder.

My hope behind all this is that someone reads this and spares them-self. Respect the laser, especially the power of a 445. Put it side by side with a 50mw 532 and they look similar, while the 445 is 25x more powerful. Had it been splash light from a 532 this wouldn't have happened.

 

[Akeyla]

I'm not sure if it's really possible, but somehow today my eye seems worse, like the blurry spot has moved almost dead center into my right eye. If I cover my left eye I pretty much can't read with the right. Everything else is clear, just dead center, bam, blur. Sigh. It's been four days sense I saw the eye doc, and it had been four days since I had done the damage then. The dilating eye drop he put in that eye should have more or less worn off today, so perhaps now with a smaller pupil I'm going to be more fucked than I had thought. I'll call the eye doc again first thing Monday morning, or perhaps take the short trip to Seattle and go to a major hospital.

 

[Sigurthr]

IIRC there is secondary damage that can be done due to inflammation from the body reacting to the injury. You'd best get to a qualified doc quickly to assess if there is dangerous inflammation present. Sometimes the body's response to injury is delayed.

 

[Akeyla]

I am actually, leaving to go to Seattle. Harbor View ER has an optical department, which is what I was referred to after talking to UW Medicine and Virgina Mason. Thank God for health care.

 

[Akeyla]

So saw an ophthalmologist yesterday. Pretty much the same as the optometrist said, permanent. Through out the day the right eye cleared up again so I can read with it. The hospital tested my vision as 20/30 in the right vs the 20/20 it was a couple days before. I now have a strand of like four or five floaters near the center of my vision, it is incredibly annoying. More so than the blind spot. It's likely "liberated retinal tissue". There's nothing that can really be done about those and he didn't seem to think they'd go away. Next week I see a retina specialist. Perhaps he will have better news.

As far as swelling and edema of that area go, it's a possibility, but the Dr. stated that should that become an issue they have plenty of ways to treat it.

C'est la vie.

 

[IsaacT]

Damn. Can I ask how old you are? I can estimate based on the way you write or the independence with which you go to the opthalmologist but it is a very wide range.

Did the doctor give any indication that you would eventually not notice it much? Like your brain would fill in the blanks?

Also, I guess you REALLY got hit hard in the eye. The way I imagined it from the OP was as a quick flash. That is a sobering thought.

 

[Akeyla]

I'm 34. He said that the brain would try and correct for it in time, be it months or years.

It's the stupid floaters that are killing me, being that they just started yesterday. Everywhere I look I have this line of dots. The doctor did say if I got more in the next couple days to come back to the ER and he would be on call. He also had paged the retinal specialist and got the returned call while in the room with me so I overheard some of the conversation, much of which went over my head.

Oh yes, the ophthalmologist also said that they would like do, what he just described as a CT of my retina without the radiation. I'm familiar with CT's, I've had them before, but not certain of what sort of scan he's talking about, although I suspect it's 3D as CT's are.

When people say blind spot it just makes you think of a big, black spot where your vision should be. Where the burn mark is is more of just a blur, but still contains background color. The floaters now are black spots, but they are incredibly out of focus being that they are inside my eye and cast shadows directly onto the retina. They also aren't static in position, they move around a bit.

Oh yes, the ophthalmologist said that the burn is in the macula, and that it just missed the fovea.

 

[IsaacT]

Ha! My guess was 35.

The blind spot sounds very distracting! Do you think it will cause problems for your job? I am actually slightly worried now. I should be a bit more careful. If something like this happens to me I might have a few doors I was going to explore close on me.