A Florida man was fishing during the summer when the catfish he pulled from the water hit him in the face and caused an eye injury that has kept him from working for almost 2 1/2 months.
The Bradenton Herald reports Kory Williams, 29, was fishing in Sarasota on June 20 when he gave his rod a jerk after feeling a tug from the water. The fish had already been captured and needed to be reeled in, which made Williams' jerk a mighty blow and catapulted the fish towards his face, hitting him in his right eyeball with its "inch-long spines," he said.
After three surgeries, Williams told the Bradenton Herald that he has yet to return to work as he is unable to drive or “do activity that even results in a tiny sweat.”
“It’s time I get out of the house and go make some money for my family,” he said. “This has been crazy.”
An injury to the eye from a catfish spine is an “extremely unusual injury,” according to Dr. Joshua Mali, who said he commonly sees fish hooks being the perpetrators for fish-related eye injuries.
“I believe the eye is the most delicate organ in the body, but it is also the most resilient,” he said. “A scleral buckle is a tiny, flexible silicone band, similar in appearance to a belt buckle, that is wrapped around the outside wall of the eye to gently indent the sclera so that the wall of the eye is supported and pushed closer to the retina in order to close the retinal tear.”
Both Mali and Williams agree that the biggest takeaway is remembering to wear eye protection when fishing with Gary Morse of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, adding that protection is imperative.
“Eye protection can go a long way to prevent such injuries,” he told the Bradenton Herald. “I wear polarized eye protection. Others wear safety glasses.”
This comes a few days after a Pennsylvania woman was struck by a catfish that fell from the sky while she was walking to fitness class.
Read more at the Bradenton Herald.
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