Losing Eyesight

My father went blind when he worked for the Ford company, welding. He wore the goggles, but apparently welded a little too long - like 10 hours a day. Not sure you can call it an accident - but it happened.
He never once saw my face, by the way. He was 100-percent blind before I was born.

When I worked in the emergency room, we'd often get men in who did some welding or watched someone else weld - and they'd literally come in screaming in pain - very painful. We'd always wash out their eyes, put in all sorts of special medications and then wrap them - they had to keep the shield on for three days and we never knew for sure how much damage there was until they got re-evaluated by a specialist we would send them to.

Because we were an emergency room, they usually didn't return to us. But I do know of two cases where the men lost part and in one, most of their eyesight.

Sad. Dumb accident.

But I guess an Explosion might do it - chemicals in the eyes - car accident that brings metal from car into their face.

I was a welder / tacker when I was younger. I got flash burn several times. There is no suffering equal to the sand-in-the-eye burning that results in careless or no eye protection. I was doomed for approximately 10 hours of incomprehensible pain each time. The only thing that helped relieve it was a whole bottle of Jack Daniels and ice cubes in washclothes.
then I had a good 36 hours of a severe hangover.

2 days later I was tacking again without eye protection.

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Exploding glass.

Lab accidents.

Fighting...being punched in the eye.

A severe blow to the head can cause a retinal detachment (thus no connection between receptor cells in the retina and the optic nerve), but this would normally affect only one eye. In some cases this can be fixed through surgery. Age and genetics can also cause retinal detachment. I've had two complete retinal detachments (same eye) and three surgeries since Christmas for this condition. When my retina detached (genetics) it occured quickly in the space of 24 hours. If not repaired within a few days, loss of vision is permanent. Blindness can also be caused by macular degeneration (center of the retina craps out) and other disease/genetic conditions or by scar tissue that develops secondary to eye surgery. Injury to the brain where imaging information is processed can also cause blindness even when the eye functions correctly.

A girl at my school (when I was in elementary) wore glasses. The boys were throwing rocks up and catching them as they came down. One hit her glasses and broke them, getting glass into her eye. She lost the eye.

If this is for a character you might also be interested to know its possible for some people with diabetes to lose their eyesight due to the disease.

Just to add some more things to the list for future readers:
* Stroke
* Multiple Sclerosis etc

There is also a very sad & bizarre affect that can happen if you get injured in one eye. (eg: Glass injury, burn etc)
If the wound gets infected, you can go blind in **BOTH** eyes - basically the immune system gets fooled by the infection and starts destroying eye tissue instead of the infection.

In World War I it was common for a (British) soldier injured in one eye to go blind totally because of it. The Germans were smarter - they took out the eye completely if a wound got infected. It was considered smarter to guarantee that they had 100% vision in one eye instead of gambling going totally blind to get an extra bit of vision in the injured eye.

It can still happen today.

Mac

September skies said:

My father went blind when he worked for the Ford company, welding. He wore the goggles, but apparently welded a little too long - like 10 hours a day. Not sure you can call it an accident - but it happened. He never once saw my face, by the way. He was 100-percent blind before I was born.

Click to expand...

I know a particular kind of welding, arc welding, can blind people in a single accident (i.e. not over time--it happens from a single accidental exposure, from the person not wearing their visor or whatever; the light is just too bright for the human eye to bear). There are a few different kinds of arc welding (tig welding, mig welding... I'm not sure of the spelling on those) that can do that. And I understand gas welding can do it more gradually.

Some more:

Lasers can do that - particularly ones that run in the visible range. Some laser pointers sold on the black market, usually green ones, are powerful enough to cause permanent blindness.

Louis Braille lost his eyesight in an accident with an awl. He used a similar awl to invent his alphabet.

Macular degeneration in older people.