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Horrible irony.

Richie89

Richie89

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I wasn't sure exactly where to post this so I figured general was okay.

So this is literally the craziest thing that has heppened to me in a while, unfortunately it is tragic for someone I know. So two Fridays ago a guy that I know works at a store I deliver to, and he was all set to go on a 8 day vacation. I always talk to him about lasers because he's somewhat intrigued and amazed that this stuff exists. I was telling him about my Pltb450b build that sits just under 1.7 watts, he asked me if it would blind You. I said Oh yes of course it most certainly will in a split second.
He was asking me the usual weird questions like "what if you accidentally swipe it across your eye super super fast would if still blind you?" I explained to him that light travels at over 11,000,000 miles per min or 186,000 miles/sec. so NO it doesn't matter how fast it hits your eye, you're Done! Permanent severe damage forever.
He basically said "well that would suck being blind" he also said that's why he would never get into this hobby because that would scare him too much.
So later that day he went to go prepare for vacation with his wife, and they had a luggage bag they had filled up to much and tried using a bungee cord to close it up, well the tension was too great and the bungee slipped out of him wife's hand and the metal clip on the bungee cord hit him directly in the eye slicing his eye right open damaged the arterie that supplies blood to the pupil, so his pupil is as large as it can be because it can't dilate back to small and on top of that that eye that was hit is now blurry and the eye doctor here at the Dean McGee eye institute says that unfortunately it may be like that forever :( I feel so bad for my friend and it's insane not to mention horrible at the fact we were just talking about being blinded by lasers 8 hours before hand and this happens to him. Life works in mysterious ways and their are always constant reminders of how your life can change in a split second.
I wanna keep you all updated on his situation as time goes a long, hopefully his eye will get a little better over time. I just wanted to share this story with you all and thanks so much for reading.
I may be busy soon so I won't be back on for a little while.
 





That sucks. :(

Kinda glad I wear glasses sometimes, have protected me on more than one occasion.
 
Unfortunate accident. Doesn't sound good.

Accidents happen--all the more reason to wear goggles when using lasers rather than pretend an accident can not happen to you.
 
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Life does change suddenly. Best wishes and prayers for that man. :can:
 
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Richie89 said:
...damaged the arterie that supplies blood to the pupil...
Click to expand...


Zu356G1.gif



Did they stop teaching biology in public schools down in the bible belt or what's going on here?
 
That's terrible news, Richie. I feel so badly for your friend. I wear glasses too, though I did wear contacts when I was younger. It has protected me from eyes damage many times. We were even allowed to use them in place of safety googles in Organic Chemistry lab. I hope your friend's eyesight is not as permanent as has been foretold.
 
Sorry to hear of your friend's accident, Richie, hope his recovery goes as well as possible.
I use those damn bungee's quite often, and am always worried about something like this happening.
 
Gah! Eye damage is a tremendous fear of mine! Sorry for your friend and I hope that he heals well.

My parents had a friend, when I was younger, that did this exact same thing. It's been a few years but he is still a better marksman than us so I feel like he healed just fine. Hopefully the same will come for your friend:)
 
holy heck!! that hurt just reading about it. i really hope he gets better and that it isnt that permanent...:can:
 
That is pretty horrible indeed, though i hope and suppose it hit him only one eye so he will not be actually blind, just have a hard time judging distances for a while.

With access to really good medical care your friend may have chances of partial recovery too though. As i understand in resulted in a laceration that damaged the cornea, pupil, possible lens, but not the retina.

The sort of good news about that is that most of it can be treated, whereas retinal damage often is not treatable. A damaged lens can be replaced with an artifical one (fairly common for cataracts), a cornea can be transplanted, and loss of pupil funciton could be fixed to some degree using a contact lens with limited aperture (this makes you lose dark/light adaptability to some degree, but allows sight in most conditions though painful when going into brightly lit areas).

Downside is that all of this is -very- expensive to do. In many european countries that cost would be mostly covered by (mandatory) healthcare insurance and such, but i'm aware that this may not be the case in the US, and that the cost to save vision to the damaged eye may not be coverable, despite being technically possible.

But even then, living with only one functional eye is not -that- hard. My father lost vision in one eye due to physical trauma a few years ago. He can still do virtually anything he could before, though had a fall/stumble or two shortly after due to lack of depth perception.

If you are blind in one eye it's definitly time to stop messing around with lasers though, regardless of safety precautions available i'd never build or use one again if i only had one eye remaining.
 
Tragic.. that powerful laser u should never have batteries in unless it has safety features that prevents accidental power on.. :(
 
mortuus said:
Tragic.. that powerful laser u should never have batteries in unless it has safety features that prevents accidental power on.. :(
Click to expand...

You know this wasn't a laser injury? It had nothing to do with lasers at all.
 
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