Eye injuries on Diwali night shatter six patients

CHANDIGARH: Lying down in the PGI's Advanced Eye Centre ward with an eye bandaged after a surgery, seven-year-old Prince shudders when his father recalls the Diwali night incident. Prince weeps in pain and does not want to talk about crackers at all, after he damaged his eye on Thursday night. Just a few beds away is 10-year-old Amritpal Singh, who perforated his eye after a cracker exploded when he came near it.Both these patients had been bystanders and have been suffering the pain.
"We came from Amritsar to celebrate the festival in the Sector 38 gurdwara. My son injured his eye when he came near a cracker bomb, which he thought had exploded," said Sukhwinder Singh. Likewise, Prince - a resident of Kaithal - got injured when a sparkle from a nearby rocket perforated his eye. "His elder brother was lighting the rocket, when it hit Prince's eye. He has been admitted since Thursday night," said his uncle Rajbir. Prince is the youngest eye injured patient.
Eighteen-year-old Vijay from Narayangarh in Haryana was injured when a neighbour's rocket hit his eyes. "This time, the patients have not come with severe injuries. Last year, there were 13 such serious cases. Until now, we have six serious cases," said a PGI doctor. The doctors are not certain about the loss of vision of these cases. "It will depend on time, and how long the eye injuries will take to heal. Of course, the vision has been affected, but we cannot ascertain the impact," said Dr Jaspreet, ophthalmologist at PGI.