Mumbai blasts victim gets his eye but vision blurs

Rajni Kheda, 24, owes his sight to doctors at a South Mumbai hospital. The diamond trader, who works at Pancharatna building, kept rubbing his eye after the 13/7 blast near his office. It was later found that a 2cm shard had entered his eye.

Dr Hitendra Mehta, vitreo-retinal surgeon, and Dr Rupali Sinha, orbit and oculoplastic surgeon, removed the object on Friday. The vision in Kheda’s eye, however, has dimmed. The shrapnel was nearly as big as the eye, which is 22mm, the doctors said.

Kheda, who came from Surat to learn the trade, was at Pancharatna when the blast took place. “I rushed to see if he was hurt,” said his cousin Anil Malviya, who works in the same complex. “Rajni kept saying something went in his eye. We took him to Hurkissondas Hospital.” After initial treatment, ophthalmologists there referred him to Infiniti Eye Hospital, Opera House.

Kheda’s eye was swollen and had turned red. “We could do nothing as there was too much swelling,” said Sinha. A CT scan revealed that a foreign object was lodged behind the eye — between the muscle and the nerve. The area is called the orbit.

The shard had punctured the lower part of the eye and torn the muscle. Kheda could only perceive light with the eye. He had no vision. “I had to enter the orbit from the eyelid and tease the metal piece out,” said Sinha.

The piece was twisted and during surgery the doctors realised that the retina had been pulled out and the lens, ruptured. “I did a procedure called vitrectomy where the retina is put back in place with a laser. The vitrous jelly in the eye is then removed and silicon oil put in its place,” said Mehta. “Before surgery, we gave him no assurance of vision. But we hope he gets vision up to 5-6m so that he can move about.”

Diamond traders allayed Malviya’s fear that Kheda’s work would be affected with the injury to the left eye. They said he could learn to use the right eye.