A Florida woman was left without her right eye after an accident whilst walking her dog resulted in her having to get surgery.
Daniella Abreu was on a nighttime walk with her almost-30kg husky, Blue on 7 August 2023, unsuspecting of what was about to happen.
Naturally, the dog owner used a leash to control Blue, though her original rope leash had become too frayed over time, so she was forced to use an older, retractable leash.
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In the middle of their walk, her pooch spotted a stray rabbit, bolting toward it. This caused the leash to give out, rebound, and cause the handle to strike Abreu in her face, which began to gush blood.
She explained to people that the 'friction of the leash' had 'snapped back and repelled', hitting her in the right eye, an incident that she knew 'was bad immediately'.
The 24-year-old said that her 'flight-or-fight' response kicked in, as she ran home to seek help from her parents, while screaming in pain.
“My mom got to me first and I just fell into her arms and got really pale. My dad, oh my goodness, his face was so frightened and terrified,” she revealed.
Admittedly unaware of how severe the health scare was, she said that she 'knew it was a pretty severe situation', as the American lost enough blood to pass out.
Daniella was taken to a trauma centre in Fort Pierce where she found that the accident split her eyelid open, causing a fracture under her eye as well as a detached retina.
Following X-rays and stitches to put her eyelid back together, she felt the full extent of the injury: “The pain was a 10 out of 10. I started hysterically crying because it was so bad.”
Following the emergency surgery in Miami, she was officially declared blind in he right eye with no chance of saving her vision.
In total, there were four surgeries as doctors explaining that the seriousness of the damage was what led to the conclusion of Daniella's eye being removed.
For months after the surgery, she was bedridden, and her life changed forever.
“Even to this day, I still don’t believe it’s true," Daniella explained.
“I had to put my entire life on pause. I went from being a super-active girl — on a competitive dance team, working out on the side, a full-time job — and I basically had to take a year off of life.
Since the incident, Daniella has sadly suffered form migraines, PTSD, anxiety and panic attacks.
A GoFundMe was created by her neighbours, which detailed that money raised could help with her recovery, as they hope that advancements in technology could help to repair her vision.
Abreu now has a prosthetic eye that will need to be replaced in three to five years, and it also seeing a therapist after her final surgery in June this year.
The biggest challenge for her was 'relearning' how to use her eyes: “When you have both eyes, you’re used to opening them at the same time.
"But my right eye was stitched close, so I had to gradually learn how to only open my left eye, which was straining and it caused me more pain."
Joshua Nair