Tuesday, October 15, 2024 - A young schoolgirl has lost an eye after a vape ‘exploded in her face’, covering her skin in battery acid.
Ruby Grainger had just bought an ice cream from a van parked
near her home in the suburb of Tallaght in Dublin when the incident happened.
The seven-year-old was walking past a bonfire lit by excited
youth in the area when a battery in the flames burst shards of the vape in her
face.
Her mother Ciara, 32, told the Irish Mirror: ‘She was
walking across to the van and when she was coming back bang, something exploded
in her face.
‘All I hear is screaming, she was hysterical, when she got
to the house I could have collapsed.
‘The blood was rushing all down her face, I put her to my
chest and rang the ambulance, I was frantic.’
Ruby was rushed to Hospital by ambulance and that same night
she was transferred to the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital.
Her family was told that doctors removed her eye during an
emergency operation on October 5.
‘Doctors said that this is the first case of this kind of
damage from a fire, they have seen explosions but to lose her whole eye, the
socket, everything,’ Ciara said.
‘I do not think it has properly hit me that the child has no
eye now. For a split second her whole life changed, and mine too, when she lost
her eye I lost mine.
‘If I could give her mine I would. I would give everything
for her, she is only seven, and this never should have happened to her. I
cannot believe it.’
The mother-of-four said doctors believe the damage was
caused by battery acid as ‘the eyeball was like mashed potato’.
Ruby says she did not feel anything hit her eye, and doctors
say the type of damage done would not be caused by a physical object.
After the accident, a family member checked where the fire
was, and discovered remnants of several burnt-out vapes.
A fundraiser has been launched for Ruby so she can have a
prosthetic eye fitted and Doctors hope that Ruby’s eye socket will have healed
well enough in six weeks, so she can have the operation.
Doctors say she will have to relocate to a specialised
school for visually impaired children.
Her mother said: ‘Ruby will also never be able to go to play
like she used to, Ruby also has to learn to balance again due to having a blind
side, and the biggest one is Ruby is no longer able to see out of her right
eye.’
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