Woman Describes 'Blind Spot' from Looking at Last Solar Eclipse, Warns 'Don't Be Like Me'
A woman said she “didn’t think anything of it” when she looked directly at the 2017 eclipse, but says the next day she woke up and “couldn’t see things”
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Woman describes permanent eye damage after looking directly at the 2017 solar eclipse.A woman who looked directly at the solar eclipse in 2017 is talking about the permanent eye damage she sustained — even though it didn't physically hurt at the time.
“It pains me that me and the orange man have something in common,” the unnamed woman began her video, referring to how then-President Donald Trump famously looked directly at the solar eclipse without protective glasses.
“I did look at the solar eclipse six and a half years ago. I didn’t realize, or just didn’t get the glasses, and I thought it wasn’t gonna be a big deal, and I closed my right eye and I stared at the sun for a good, like, 15 seconds.”
“Didn’t think anything of it. Not an issue,” she said.
@iambridgeet/SCI + TECH /TMX
Woman describes permanent eye damage after looking directly at the 2017 solar eclipse.But as NASA explains, looking looking directly at the sun — even during an eclipse — can present “significant” danger because “photic retinal injuries occur without any feeling of pain (there are no pain receptors in the retina), and the visual effects do not occur for at least several hours after the damage is done.”
And that’s what happened for the woman, who said she didn’t experience any changes to her vision until she woke up the next morning.
Related: What Time Will the Total Solar Eclipse Be Viewable in Your Area? All About the Path of Totality
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty
Then-President Donald Trump looks directly at the 2017 solar eclipse while First Lady Melania Trump wears protective glasses.“I opened up my left eye to read on my phone. And I couldn’t read every other word. There was, like, a blind spot on every other word that I was reading.”
“I was like, ‘Okay, that’s weird.’ Maybe I haven’t, like, woken up.”
She said she walked around her house, but said, “I couldn’t see things.”
“And it was a direct—” she said, using her arm to mimic how the blind spot was right where the sun had been the day before.
That’s when she said she began researching solar damage from looking at the sun.
“I started driving to the eye doctor and couldn’t see the signs” on the road, she said.
Related: 105-Year-Old Man Has Spent Decades Chasing Solar Eclipses — But He’s Still Excited to See His 13th
She said when she had later eye exams, she learned “there was some damage that was done to something.”
“Certain parts of my eye is distorted,” she explained, calling her eyesight “slow 20/20 vision.”
Carlos Tischler/ Eyepix Group/Future Publishing via Getty
People look at the solar eclipse with protective glasses.But what actually happened, the Journal of the American Medical Association explains, is that "even a few seconds of viewing the sun during an eclipse can temporarily or permanently burn the macula," which is part of the retina.
"Once retina tissue is destroyed, it cannot regenerate, resulting in permanent central vision loss."
And it’s all “because I stood at the solar eclipse without the glasses for ten seconds six and a half years ago”
“So don’t be like me and that orange man.”
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