One sharp blow, and the eye was never the same again.
In Taiwan, a 48-year-old man was securing cargo on his truck when the bungee cord he was using suddenly came loose. The recoil hit him squarely in the left eye. There was no cut, no visible blood, but inside, something had become detached.
Doctors documented the case in The New England Journal of Medicine in April 2019: severe traumatic iridodialysis. The iris, the colored part that gives your eyes their color, had been completely torn from its supporting root, the ciliary body. The pupil lost its natural shape, and the patient was left with blurred vision, extreme sensitivity to light, and double vision.
Specialists explain that all it takes is a direct impact—a ball, a punch, or the whip-like snap of an elastic band—to detach the iris from its place. The eye may look intact on the outside while inside, the structure that controls how much light enters has become completely disconnected.