Quoted:
I had a lead acid battery explosion, about 18 inches from my face. Took a good amount of acid in my eyes, nose, both ears, and also a chunk of plastic battery case got shoved into my eyebALL, slashed the eyelid, and pierced the cornea.
instantly 100 percent blinded, ears ringing, I groped around for a while, disoriented, sorta panicky, found the door, made it into the bathroom, and got The water going, started trying to flush my face, and then dug the big chunk of plastic OUT OF MY EYE...
That is where I almost lost it, got the wicked stomach ache, low blood pressure, vertigo,thought I was going down on the floor, but I held onto the sink, and kept flushing the eyes.
After 5 minutes or so, one of my eyes started working a little bit, fuzzy, but enough to go find some saline eye wash solution.... I started saline wash down, and went to get my truck started.
winter, maybe minus 5 degrees, so it takes a few minutes to get the diesel warm enough to drive to hospital...
by this time, co-worker who heard the explosion, but was busy running a cutting torch for a bit, finished his cut, turned off his gas bottles, coiled up the hoses, etc, he finally comes up front, realizes the immediate nature of my problem, drives me up to emergency room. I keep a steady stream going from the saline bottle, still hurts like a bitch..
after a couple hours, the ER crew finishes hosing out my eyes, and locates a surgeon up the road, about 2 hours drive, so wife drives me up to meet this WIZARD eye doctor, who actually SEWED my eyeball back together. sewed up the eyelid too, while he was at it.
amazing, sewed my eye up, manually, by hand.
so, my eye is fixed, pretty much, looks funny, like it has dual pupils,but works mostly alright.
Doc only charged about $9,000 not really that expensive, considering how cool eyes are....
...I am real fond of EYE protection now, wear safety glasses much of the time.
That sucks man.
I had one explode on me once also, but most of it hit me in the chest. Only got a little in my face. It was cold as hell out so I had a lot of clothes on that took most of the hit.