Two women who accidentally sealed their eyes with superglue after mistaking the bottles for eye drops have shared their painful recovery.
Jennifer Eversole, from Santa Rosa, took the bottle from her dresser drawer, which she had placed next to her drops after gluing her daughter’s nails, and didn’t realize the mistake until she poured some into her left eye.
The mother of six was rushed to hospital, where doctors eventually pry open her eye and remove the super glue.
She revealed the mistake online and said, “Well, I did it. I won the most idiotic person award. I wasn’t paying attention, and now my eye is glued shut.’
“I just feel so stupid.”
Last year, a 22-year-old woman named Lyd described a similar incident: She woke up in the middle of the night, reached for eye drops, and grabbed glue instead.
Jennifer Eversole of Santa Rosa, California, accidentally glued her eye shut after mistaking the bottle of superglue for her eye drops. She documented her experience on TikTok and said she has since made a full recovery
Ms Eversole revealed the mishap on TikTok earlier this week in a video that has been viewed 4.4 million times, saying she realized something was wrong the moment she poured the glue into her left eye.
In a video as she explained what it felt like, she said, “Burning intensely. Really bad burn, it felt hot.’
She quickly closed her eyes, thinking most of the glue was not getting into her eyeball, and then called an ambulance.
At the hospital, doctors applied a specialist antibiotic ointment to her eyelashes and eyelids to break up the glue. The antibiotics also helped minimize the risk of infection.
They could then pry open the eyelid and check the damage to her eyeball. She was able to keep it open after using numbing eye drops.
She was later discharged, but she was told to keep a bandage on her eye and to apply ointment daily to gradually disintegrate the remaining bits of glue stuck under her eyelid.
Ms Eversole said her vision was still ‘super, super blurry’ after all the glue was off.
But she revealed in a after yesterday that her eye was ‘healing nicely’. Doctors expect her vision to return to normal within days, she said.
She appears to have sustained no permanent damage to her eyeball, though she said she felt the glue had scratched it at the time of the accident.
“I’m definitely more appreciative of my eyesight,” she said. “You don’t know how much you need both eyes until you can no longer use one.”
Ms Eversole said she was distracted and wasn’t paying attention to which bottle she reached for, accidentally putting superglue in her eye
When asked how she made that mistake, Ms. Eversole showed pictures of the two bottles and said they were very similar and she wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice.
“I was distracted talking to my daughter getting ready to go grocery shopping, and I just grabbed it. They’re the same size!’ she said.
It’s unclear if she wears contact lenses, though it seems likely. In other videos, she is depicted wearing glasses.
Despite the EMTs not seeing another case like this, this problem is common enough that the glue company Super Glue Corporation has an FAQ section on its website.
However, most cases do not have serious consequences. A 2012 study in the International Journal of Ophthalmology examined people with super glue in their eyes and found no cases of permanent damage being caused.
The worst the researchers found were cases where the eye was sealed shut and bits of glue were left in the eye.
Lyd, 22, shared on TikTok last year that she put super glue in her eye after she woke up in the middle of the night and grabbed the wrong bottle. Doctors had to pry open her eye
Mrs. Eversole is not alone in making that mistake.
Last year, 22-year-old Lyd shared on TikTok that she also glued one of her eyes shut.
In a video with 5.5 million views, Lyd said she mistook a bottle of superglue for her eye drops.
Like Mrs. Eversole, she went to the hospital. Doctors first asked her to apply ointment to break down and dissolve the glue.
When that didn’t work, however, they started fiddling with the glue. In the end, doctors “had to use a metal tool to pry it open and finally got it open.”
In the comments, Lyd explained that she woke up in the middle of the night trying to use her eye drops and accidentally reached for the wrong bottle.
“Man, I bet that was a real eye-opener,” commented one user.
“Didn’t see it coming,” Lyd replied.