Man Impaled Through Eye by Pruning Shears, Retains Sight [PICTURE, VIDEO]

86-year-old LeRoy Luetscher dropped his pruning shears while gardening, and tripped and fell when he went to pick them up. In a horrifying mishap, the handle of the shears entered into his right eye-socket and made its way all the way to the middle of his neck.

After being rushed to get medical attention, the injury shocked hospital doctors:

“‘This was pretty dramatic and you just didn’t understand what you were looking at,’ said Dr. Lynn Polonski, an ocular plastic surgeon at University Medical Center in Tuscon, Arizona. ‘What we found was it was in his neck. It was close to his carotid artery [which provides the main blood supply to the brain].’”

Luestscher’s eyeball had been pushed so far back into his skull that no one could be sure it was still in one piece. Amazingly, surgeons were able to save Luestscher’s vision by removing the shears and rebuilding his orbital floor with mesh wire. Besides some slight double vision, Leutscher’s has made a complete recovery from his injury.

[via KOLD News]