19-year-old Samantha D’Aprile, who lives in the United States, placed the chocolates in a bowl of hot water while baking cookies with her mother in December 2021. The sudden explosion of boiling hot water caused shards of glass and hot chocolate to sink into his eyes. Running quickly to the bathroom and splashing water in her eyes, the young girl’s eyes swelled and her eyelids closed.
THEY GOT MORPHINE DUE TO THEIR PAIN
After the pot exploded in her face, D’Aprile said she felt ‘like on fire’ when her eyes started to swell and close. He was rushed to the hospital by his mother, but had to be transferred to another unit after the unit they went to said was not taking care of the burns. She said, “I had so much pain that my body started shutting down, they gave me morphine, which relieved the pain and I was able to breathe again.
His cornea and eyelids were burnt.
When I came to the hospital, they immediately took me to a room and did all kinds of treatment and tests on me. “At this point, my eyes swelled shut, I couldn’t open my mouth because he was burned too, and all of these medications had taken a toll on me.” An examination revealed that he had burned his cornea, or the clear dome-shaped area above the eye. His eyelids were also burned. Paramedics kept him in the hospital for two nights to monitor and administer treatment.
D’Aprile said the nights were ‘brutal’ and made him ‘incapable of sleeping’. “I couldn’t sleep, and whenever I could sleep, the nurses gave me medicine and woke me up so painfully that I opened my eyes to inject drops,” she said. Doctors discharged D’Aprile two days later, but he had to go to the hospital every day for tests.
80 PERCENT RISK OF COLOR Blindness
“On the third day I couldn’t see, the doctor opened my eyes to test if I still had vision. The doctor opened them and I could barely see, but he put a ‘band-aid’ on my eyes. He described my eyes as looking like someone was taking a razor and cutting them both off.” Doctors feared that D’Aprile might lose his vision, or that his vision might decrease if his cornea remained blurred areas from injuries. “I had an 80 percent risk of being colorblind because my cornea was so damaged,” he said.
“I TOLD THE DOCTORS I WANTED TO LIVE NO LONGER”
Five days after the accident, it was Christmas day and the student decided to open his eyes again. He found that although extremely painful, he was able to open them slightly. About two weeks after the accident, Ms. D’Aprile found that her vision had returned to normal and she was able to do everything she used to do. But D’Aprile, who had perfect vision before the accident, has now miraculously recovered and can see perfectly again after resting at home. “I told the doctors I didn’t want to live anymore when I found out that my visit was almost over,” D’Aprile told DailyMail.com.
“THAT WAS THE WORST THING I HAVE EVER EVER EXPERIENCED”
I was in a very dark place and I was going crazy for a few days when I couldn’t see. I couldn’t imagine the rest of my life like this. The transition from having perfect vision to being told the next day that I could be blind for the rest of my life was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced and I just couldn’t get over it.”