UAE student blinded after classmate threw pen gets 80% eyesight restored

When 15-year-old Dhikshit Anoop's mother, Greeshma Anoop, got a call about her son's eye injury in school, she thought he might have to take eye drops for a few days.

However, she was unaware that her son had been blinded and it would need two surgeries and months of treatment to restore his sight partially.

The student was struck in the right eye when his classmates were throwing ballpoint pens across the classroom. The severity of the injury caused a deep corneal tear and a traumatic cataract, which posed a risk of life-long blindness.

Dhikshit went to the hospital about 4-5 hours after the incident. “When he first came to the hospital, his eye was in a terrible condition,” Dr Parth Hemantkumar Joshi, ophthalmologist at Aster Hospital Mankhool, told Khaleej Times. “His cornea, lens and vitreous were injured. We informed the parents about the nature of the injury, the required treatment in a two-staged approach and a relatively long recovery period of around four to six months with visual rehabilitation.”

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The development of a cataract following such an injury is common, occurring in up to 60 per cent of severe open eye injuries.

Within the next few hours, Dhikshit underwent the first surgery to put stitches in his eye. “The first step was to close the wound to prevent further infection and potential loss of sight, so we secured it with stitches thinner than human hair,” said Dr Parth. “It was done under general anaesthesia and took around 45 minutes to complete.”

Dhikshit was then allowed to go home and the stitches were allowed to heal for more than a month. Greeshma said that the recovery period was one of the toughest that the family encountered.

“Dhikshit is a football player, and I would hardly see him at home for more than half an hour,” she said. “But during this time, he was not allowed to go out, play sports, or lift heavy things. Luckily, the doctor allowed him to watch TV. I would download some movies and series for him. He was not a big movie fan but now he enjoys it. My younger son is four years old. He would try to be with Dhikshit and cheer him up all the time.”

Once the stitches were healed, the teenager went back for his second surgery. “After the eye was stabilised, we undertook the second, more definitive procedure,” said Dr. Parth. “During this, all the damaged structure of the eye, like the lens and the vitreous, were removed and replaced. The procedure took a little over an hour. Eventually we could save up to 75 to 80 per cent of his eyesight, which was an excellent outcome considering that he had zero vision in the right eye when he came in.”

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