Mixing up your eyedrops with a tube of super glue sounds like something that you'd see in a sitcom or movie, but a Michigan woman will tell you that in spite of the cartoon-like premise, it actually does happen.

I tried combing through archives of Rockford area news to see if this had ever been reported as happening here in Rockford or surrounding towns, but I couldn't find any evidence of it. I did work with a guy many years ago here at WROK who accidently grabbed a small bottle of razor oil (the stuff you put on the blades of your electric razor to keep the blades running smoothly) instead of a bottle of Visine. Other than giving him a stunningly bloodshot eye for a few days, there were no other harmful effects. Unless you count the dozens of co-workers who razzed him endlessly as a harmful effect.

WGN-TV News reports that a woman in Michigan just had a horrible experience when she grabbed the wrong bottle from her purse when she needed some eye relief:

Yacedrah Williams was asleep Thursday around 1 a.m. when she woke up and sought to remove her contacts. She grabbed her purse for eye drops, but pulled out the bottle of glue by mistake. “I just started throwing cold water, and I was trying to pull my eyes apart but couldn’t. I was just screaming for him to call 911.”

Luckily for her, doctors at the hospital were able to get her contacts out and her eyes unstuck and opened. They also pointed out that she was not the first person to ever have this happen.

I did a bit of digging, and it turns out the doctors are right. This has happened a surprising amount of times before. Just looking at my search results, I see that:

  • A woman in New Zealand super-glued her lips together when she grabbed the adhesive instead of her cold sore cream.(DailyEdge.ie)
  • The Illinois Poison Center Blog says they've gotten countless calls about people using a myriad of products to brush their teeth. "Usually it is other tubes in the bathroom, like hydrocortisone cream or personal lubricant (and vice versa, toothpaste mistakenly used for personal lubricant, ouch!). Most things just need a good rinse and spit and a “what have I done” shake of the head." 
  • The worst might be the Florida woman who, while working in her yard, accidently got leaf debris in her eyes. She asked a nearby man to grab her eyedrops out of her purse, but he accidently picked out the glue she used for her false eyelashes, then applied it to her eyes. After quick medical care, she wound up being okay.(Fox59.com)

 

Goosebumps and other bodily reactions, explained

More From WROK 1440 AM / 96.1 FM