17 April 2019
One lesson that I have learnt in this job is that injuries can come from unlikely and often innocuous sources.
I had thought of caterpillars as friendly critters from children’s books until this week when I learned of a girl who suffered a severely inflamed eye after an insect encounter gone wrong.
Caterpillar hairs were lodged in her cornea and underneath her eyelid, prompting a drop in visual acuity to 6/12 in the affected eye.
Then there was the motorcyclist who suffered a collapsed iris after being hit in the face with a bungee cord he was using to strap goods to his bike.
What harm could come from a sport where the ball trails synthetic feathers? This week the British Journal of Sports Medicine reported on 85 cases where players suffered ocular injuries playing badminton, with doubles players at an elevated risk of injury compared to singles players.
Surely an innocent greeting card is safe? Apparently not. At Christmas OT reported the case of a woman whose dendritic corneal lesion initially prompted clinicians to suspect a herpes simplex infection.
However, closer inspection revealed that a speck of glitter from a Christmas card was the root of the problem.
OT wishes all of our readers an enjoyable (and safe) Easter holiday.
Image credit: Getty
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