“I know how lucky I’ve been”

A Fife man has described his gratitude for retaining the vision in his left eye after a freak accident saw a wire bristle pierce his cornea.

Andrew Robertson, 29, was walking past his girlfriend who was removing paint from cast iron radiators with a grinder.

“Something flew up and hit me right in the eye. My girlfriend pulled me over to the sink to wash it out, but it wasn’t working,” Robertson recalled.

“Then I noticed there was something jagged coming out of my eye,” he said.

Robertson pulled on the object and realised that it was one of the wire bristles from the abrasive attachment his girlfriend was using with the grinder.

After struggling to sleep with an irritated eye overnight, Robertson presented at the Anstruther branch of PLM Optometrists.

Optometrist, David Cummins, recalled that Robertson told him that he had a piece of metal in his eye which he had removed, but his eye was still red and sore.

“He had this handkerchief in his hand that he offered forward. I was expecting a tiny piece of metal, but this thing was around three centimetres long,” he said.

I noticed there was something jagged coming out of my eye

After instilling fluorescein in the injured eye, Cummins observed a trickle of clear liquid running down from a wound in the centre of the pupil.

“Straight away, I could see that every time he blinked there was a tiny stream of clear fluid dripping down from the wound,” Cummins said.

After calling an ophthalmologist for advice, the independent prescribing optometrist applied a bandage contact lens to stem the flow of aqueous humor from the wound.

Robertson was referred to the Queen Margaret Hospital where clinicians made the decision to leave the bandage contact lens on.

“They thought that if the wound could heal naturally the scar would be smaller than gluing or using a stitch,” Robertson recalled.

He was given topical antibiotics as well as oral acetazolamide to reduce the production of aqueous humor. He later received steroid eyedrops to address inflammation in the eye.

Speaking with OT two weeks after the accident, Cummins confirmed that Robertson’s visual acuity was back to 6/6 in the affected eye.

“My vision is still slightly blurred, but it’s pretty much back to normal. I know how lucky I have been,” Robertson said.

Robertson told OT that the journey to hospital with his girlfriend was an anxious one.

“In the back of our minds, we thought that I might lose the eye, but as soon as the surgeon said it looked pretty good, we were hopeful,” he said.

David Cummins

A piece of metal that was removed from Andrew Robertson’s eye – with a pen to show the scale of the wire bristle

As a tradesperson working in plumbing and heating, Robertson has always been careful to wear goggles, masks and ear protection.

“Vision is always something that I have been cautious about, but I will be even more cautious now,” he said.

While the grinder attachment has been deposited in the bin, Robertson and his girlfriend have continued to find remnants of the brush around the house.

“Now we’re tidying up and we’re still finding these wee bristles everywhere,” he said.

Cummins shared that it is only the second time in his 33-year career that he has seen a corneal perforation.

The first was a nail gun injury that he came across while completing his independent prescribing placement at Bristol Eye Hospital in 2011.

Cummins shared that the case reinforces the importance of being vigilant about eye protection, adding that around half of all eye injuries occur in the home.

“It only takes a second and that can be curtains for your vision,” he said.

• Do you have an unusual case from practice that you would be open to sharing? Contact OT features editor, Selina Powell, by email.