You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

Eyes gross me out.  I've seen plenty of crazy stuff since I started working in the ED (cracked chests, exposed brain, intestines coming out of a self-inflicted stab wound), but eyes get to me.  When I was taking my EMT certification class, the pictures of bloody, punctured eyes with bits of metal sticking out of them made me want to hurl.  I have thankfully yet to see anything sticking out of anyone's eye in person, but I experienced an 8/10 on the gross-meter last night when I saw my first ruptured globe.  Apparently Dad was trying out Junior's remote-controlled car, driving it around the back yard when a pebble got drawn in by the tires and shot out the back... straight into Dad's eye.  

He wasn't even my patient; I was just passing by in the hallway and saw a group of people standing around a stretcher shining flashlights into a guy's face.  Curious to see what was happening, I peeked over the shoulders and found myself mesmerized by the red mess that was this poor guy's eye.  Unable to look away, I stood rooted to the spot, staring as the doctors examined the bloody eyeball before covering it up to wait for the ophthalmologists.  Grossed out, but excited about finally meeting my long-awaited optical nightmare, I nevertheless avoided rubbing my eyes for the next several hours.

Still, a ruptured globe isn't nearly as bad as this, which I doubt I'll ever be able to handle.