A Michigan woman nearly lost her vision when she mistakenly used nail adhesive instead of eye drops, temporarily gluing one of her eyes shut.
Yacedrah Williams made the mistake April 15 when she got up in the middle of the night to relieve her dry contacts, and in her state of fatigue mixed-up her eye drops with the nail glue because the bottles looked similar to each other.
Williams said it was not until the liquid dropped from the bottle that she realized she had grabbed the wrong one.
"I was like, 'Oh my goodness!' " she said. "It dropped in my eye and I tried to wipe it away, but I could feel it start to burn almost immediately."
Williams recalled the panic setting in when she realized her eye was glued shut. Not only did the glue burn, but she could feel the liquid begin to crystalize over her contact, creating a scratching sensation inside her eye, she said.
She tried to wash the glue away with cold water, but that did not help. She then immediately called for her husband to dial 911.
"My husband offered to take me himself, but I told him to call 911 instead because I knew what was happening was time sensitive and thought maybe the 911 responders could help along the way," she said.
Williams was rushed to the hospital where doctors performed a two- to three-hour procedure to save her eye, flushing it with saline solution and finally removing the glue-encrusted contact.
"They said that actually the contacts saved my vision," she told NBC News. "They had to pull on it and flip the top of my lid to check for any additional damage."
What could have resulted in permanent damage, turned out to be the loss of just a few eyelashes.
Glue misuse sent a Louisiana woman to the emergency room earlier this year after Tessica Brown went viral on TikTok for gluing her hair to her scalp when she used Gorilla Glue instead of her usual hair product. Brown underwent a four-hour surgery to remove the glue.
Fortunately, Williams has made a nearly full recovery, according to her ophthalmologist.
Williams said she bought the nail glue because she decided at the start of the pandemic to do her manicures at home. But after her recent scare, she said the nail adhesive has been thrown away, and she has already made one visit to the salon to have her nails done by someone else.