Michigan Woman Seals Eye Shut After Mistaking Nail Glue for Drops

A Michigan woman sealed her eye shut after mistakenly using nail glue instead of drops.

Yacedrah Williams of Metro Detroit woke up at around 1 a.m. on April 15 and wanted to put some drops in her dry eyes before removing her contact lenses, she told ABC affiliate WXYZ. The mix-up happened as the bottles were similar sizes.

Yacedrah Williams said she realized her error as the drop was about to fall into her eye. She told the news outlet: "I was like 'oh my goodness.'... It dropped in my eye and I tried to wipe it away and it sealed my eye shut."

Yacedrah Williams washed her eye with cold water and tried to prize apart her eyelids but was unable to. She said she screamed for her husband to call 911.

"It was completely shut," she said.

Her husband, identified only as Derrick in the report, said: "She went into a panic... I tried to keep her from panicking but then I said, 'Derrick, this is in her eye not yours.'"

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, around 125,000 eye injuries each year are caused by common household products, including oven cleaner and bleach.

The organization says anyone who seriously injures their eye should not try to treat it themselves, but be examined by an ophthalmologist or medical doctor. Those who get chemicals in their eye should flush the area with clean water and seek emergency treatment.

George Williams, director of the Beaumont Eye Institute at Beaumont Health, Michigan, told WXYZ that Yacedrah Williams took the right steps by washing her eye with water.

"If you ever get anything in your eye the immediate thing to do is try to flush your eye out. Just either hold your head under a faucet, get a bottle of water, hold your eye open and just flood your eye. You'll make a mess but you may save your vision," George Williams said.

He said Yacedrah Williams is not the first person to make this mistake.

In 2015, for example, Florida woman Katherine Gaydos also got nail glue in her eye after her friend mistook the two products. Debris went in her eye when a friend was leaf blowing. When she asked her to get some eye drops, she handed her nail glue instead.

She told WPBF-TV at the time: "It's stuck to my eyelids and my eyeball and it really hurts."