A father accidentally super-glued his nine-year-old son’s eye shut for four days after mistaking the tube for medical drops.
Kevin Day picked up a tube which he believed to be the medication at the family home in Thirsk, North Yorkshire in February and dropped some of the liquid into the left eye of his son Rupert, who had complained it was itchy.
Mr Day then realised it was superglue and was overwhelmed with a ‘massive fear that I had blinded my son and ruined his life’.
The father called 999 and operators told him to keep washing the eye until paramedics arrived.
They bathed Rupert’s eye and administered pain relief before the land ambulance arrived and took him to Harrogate Hospital for further treatment.
Rupert spent a few hours in hospital but could not open his eye for four tense days, and was left worrying if he would be able to use it again.
Thankfully no glue had damaged his eye and his vision has been completely fine following the ordeal.
The family is now set to share the ordeal on TV show Helicopter ER tonight.
Mr Day said: ‘Rupert scratched his eye a and we were given some eye cream. I went to put it in and then realised I had put superglue in his eye instead.
‘I phoned 999 who advised us to keep flushing it and they said an ambulance was on its way. I wasn’t expecting the air ambulance.’
This incident happened in February, and Rupert had been on eye drops for two days when his dad accidentally picked up the glue.
Yorkshire Air Ambulance dispatched its Topcliffe aircraft due to the close proximity of the airbase and were first on the scene.
Rupert will feature in Helicopter ER, shown on Channel Really at 10pm tonight.
The episode will also feature a cardiac arrest in Ilkley and a South Yorkshire DIY accident.
The Yorkshire Air Ambulance serves five million people across Yorkshire and carries out more than 1,3000 missions every year.
The charity operates two state-of-the-art Airbus H145 helicopters and needs to raise £12,000 every day to keep saving lives.