A Michigan woman glued her eye shut after mistakenly grabbing a bottle of nail glue instead of eye drops. Yacedrah Williams is lucky to still have vision in the eye after the accident, which saw her grab the wrong bottle from her purse in the middle of the night after waking up with dry eyes from falling asleep with her contact lenses in.
- She quickly realized the mistake she made. Because it was 1 a.m. and the room was dark, Yacedrah grabbed the bottle from her purse believing it to be eye drops rather than the bottle of nail glue she also keeps in the bag to repair any fingernail breakage, Detroit’s WXYZ-TV reports. She dropped the glue in and quickly realized she’d made a major mistake.
- Yacedrah tried to wash the glue away. After wiping her eye to try and remove the glue, Yacedrah realized her eye was sealed shut and started to panic. “I was like, ‘oh my goodness,’ and it dropped in my eye and I tried to wipe it away and it sealed my eye shut,” Williams said. “I just started throwing cold water and I was trying to pull my eyes apart, but I couldn’t. And I was just screaming for [my husband] to call 911.”
- She was treated at the hospital and got very lucky. Once at a local hospital, doctors were able to open her eye and remove the contact lens to restore her vision and eye health. It seems as though it was the presence of the contact lens that ultimately saved her vision as it created a barrier between the glue and her actual eye. “They said that contacts saved my vision. They kept saying, ‘you’ll probably lose your lashes,’ which I did because they had to pull on it and flip the top of my lid,” Yacedrah recalled.
- Yacedrah isn’t the first person to do this. Dr. George Williams of Beaumont Health urged anyone who gets a foreign substance in their eye to immediately try and wash it away with water as it may ultimately save your vision. He added that others had found themselves in a similar position to Yacedrah in the past, saying, “If it’s any comfort to her, she’s not the first person to make this mistake.”
Woman glues eye shut after mistaking nail glue for eye drops. ‘I just started throwing cold water, and I was trying to pull my eyes apart but couldn’t.’ Hubbie called 911.
ER doc: stuck contact lens saved Yacedrah Williams’ vision.#thursdayvibes https://t.co/2J66IQJB9m
— 🌷Darwin🌷 (@jf_darwin) April 22, 2021
