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Turns out mom was right, yet again. You can put your eye out playing with unsafe toys.
The “toy” in this case was a handheld laser, purchased online by a 15-year-old Swiss boy. According to a letter published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, the boy had ordered a laser pointer with a green light “to use as a toy for popping balloons from a distance and burning holes into paper cards and his sister’s sneakers.”
Unfortunately, he ended up burning holes in his retinas instead by pointing the laser at a mirror while trying to create a “laser show.”
“He had remarkably reduced vision. He was unable to read a newspaper,” says Dr. Martin Schmid, who treated the boy and penned the letter to NEJM warning of the risk of handheld lasers.
Laser pointers look like pens but shoot out a laser beam. They're often used by lecturers giving presentations, but more powerful versions are used by the military for long-distance signaling.
According to Schmid, who heads the retina unit at Lucerne Cantonal Hospital’s department of ophthalmology in Lucerne, Switzerland, the boy noticed blurred vision immediately after the laser hit his eyes, but was afraid to tell his parents. Instead he waited two weeks, hoping his vision would clear up.
Doctors discovered a hemorrhage in his left eye and scarring in his right. Vision in his left eye improved from 20/50 to 20/25 after doctors gave him an injection -- directly into the eyeball -- of ranibizumab, a drug normally used for people suffering from age-related macular disease.
Sadly, the boy’s retinal damage is permanent.
Your new nightmare worms its way into view
“The visual acuity will remain reduced,” says Schmid, who says laser pointer-related accidents like this have happened before and are likely to happen again due to the easy availability via the web.
All lasers have to be classified and labeled, but Schmid says many are not -- and kids and parents often don't realize these tools are real and powerful lasers.
The Swiss boy was playing with a laser with an output of 150mW -- that's 30 times the power limit imposed by the Food and Drug Administration for sale in the U.S. Lasers found online often exceed that limit.
The doctor warns no matter what type of laser, people should never shine a laser beam in their eyes or anyone else’s.
Share your stories of teen hijinks turned hazardous in the comments.
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Sad story all the way around. Does make me wonder though...It's too easy to say, "well, where were the parents in all this?"...but you cannot protect your kids from everything. I just wonder who/what he bought the pointer from? I wonder if they TOLD buyers that it was 30x stronger than what is recomended..but then that would of course cause more kids to order it. Can't win these days I suppose.
30 times the US FDA limit. This boy was in Switzerland. It's a common sense thing though. You are buying something with the intention of it being powerful enough to melt rubber from a distance. (approx 208F) What did he think would happen. 1st degree burns can be caused by a temp as low as 130F. Sadly he paid the price for being an idiot.
you are right, where were thae parents?? 15 yr old idiot is able to order online? sounds like give an inch, take a mile....they come with warnings, even the ones from the US, "dont point in eyes", "dont point at aircraft" and so on. i remember not too long ago, someone was arrested, for pointing one at aircraft... this was in the US. Another Darwin award runner up, for this years "smooth move x-lax award", as well.
I wonder if this kid will at least get an Honorable Mention from the Darwin Awards? ~_o I remember some of the stuff I did when I was a kid that my parents, still to this day, knew nothing about. And that was around 20-35 years ago!
"Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it." -- Mark Twain
Spiddas:
The good news is that he didn't really come close to killing himself.
The bad news is that he doesn't qualify for a Darwin Honorable Mention because he didn't come close to killing himself, even if the laser was much brighter than he was.
Like the Twain quote - kids think they're immortal.
It's a good thing he only injured himself, and not others.
Physics class teaches us that the 2nd Empirical Law of Lasers is to not look into the beam with your remaining good eye! Now you can guess what the 1st Law of Lasers is......Wink! (ouch)
lol..very clever!
Now if they'd only make a laser that looked like a Red Ryder BB gun ...
I guess the "Do It Yourself" Lasik kit was an epic failure!
didnt know you could buy a laser that could pop ballons or burn paper what is the point of that kind of pointer?
The point is to pop balloons and light cigarettes. Another use is apparently to burn holes in retninas.... There's all sorts of fun things you can do with it.
In this case I do wonder where the parents were to a certain degree. It was purchased online. You need a credit card for that, and then it would have been shipped to the home. However, that said, this kid was 15. If he knew what it would do to balloons at a distance, papers, and his sisters sneakers, what did he think it'd do bouncing off the mirror? I agree with the other poster in that I'm glad he only hurt himself.
In Europe, you don't have use a credit card for Internet purchases. You can and more often use direct bank account debits. It is easier, more secure and better tracked.
BRILLIANT!!!!! ...ooops pardon the pun
First, very sad that he did this to himself - and that he did it to both eyes. But very glad he did not harm another person. But even though he didn't realize what was going to happen, I think the saddest part is that he didn't tell his parents what he had done for two weeks. Our kids need to learn to own up immediately when they or someone else has been harmed - I don't know if the time wasted would have made a difference for his vision, but it certainly couldn't have hurt.
It would have made no difference at all. Cheaper high powered green lasers leak a huge amount of infra-red light, which is what caused this particular kind of damage. Essentially, the retina is cooked. The damage is instantaneous and irreversible.
Stupid is as stupid does.
I am disgusted by the cavalier comic response to this article. Equally confused by the idea that a 15-year-old understands laws of physics and what temperatures cause 1st degree burns. The only appropriate response is one of sympathy, well wishes, and gratitude that we still have our vision intact. I enjoy reading comments on this site, in general. However, in this case, it make me sad that our society has produced this level of cynicism.
1 This was in Switzerland 2 Most kids that age, in Europe, are far better educated thsn American kids, especially nowdays, and are far better versed in the sciences than most adults, This kid, since his plans for this thing were clear, knew exactly what the danger was, he just chose to ignore it.........
Louie, my son knew when he was MUCH younger than 15 that you didn't aim a laser pointer at your eyes, or at anything that could reflect it back into his eyes. Maybe we are being cynical, but a 15 year old is plenty old enough to have known better than to do what this one did. Sadly, kids that age tend to think they're invulnerable - this boy just found out the hard way that he's not.
Obviously, no commenter on here ever did anything stupid as an adolescent. They're all pure angels, free of any sin.
@louieboy cavalier comic response? not expected to understand physics or basic hot or cold?? Are you kidding me?
At 15 we expect our kids to be learning to drive, getting after school jobs, and generally making a fairly decent attempt at growing up. Most toddlers learn that that when something gets hot, it can hurt you. This young man knew EXACTLY what he was buying and why he was buying it. To quote him "“to use as a toy for popping balloons from a distance and burning holes into paper cards and his sister’s sneakers.”" Not to mention, this isnt something you put a quarter into the gumball machine and obtain. He had to get online, find one (easy enough), then pay a sizeable amount of money (around $50) Which for a 15 year old is a lot of money.
What also irks me about your post is your assumption that there is only ONE appropriate response to this incident. Sorry pal, but you don't have the option of determining my feelings about this kid or any other. I do feel sorry for him, however I also think he was an idiot and learned the hard way and I hope that anyone else contemplating a purchase like this knows the inherent risks of the device.
As for being a Darwin Award candidate, I say no. The one for 2010 needs to go to the guy that charged the cops with a knife in his hand....
What gets me is all you people that state this boy knew what would happen. I live in Lausnne which is about 214 or so kilometers from Lucerne or, to make it simple for those fellow Americans that don't know metric, about 2 hours by car. I'm that close to this kid and I am not able to know what he knows. Just how do you know? Are you familier with this boy? Are you able to read his mind from the other side of the planet and so that's how you know? Really, tell me how you are able to make such blanket statements.
As for the thought that kids in the US start driving at 15 - Here they start at 18 so what is your point? And they generally start to grow up? That's almost too funny! I'm not aware of many boys at that age that could be considered grown up. Fifty bucks is a lot of money for kids that age? Since when? You people would appear not to know much about Switzerland and how things work here. Until you do, stop being so idiotic in your comments.
He pointed the laser at a mirror to create a light show. Stupid, yes. Something a lot of kids might do? Yep and yours might be one of them so before you go pointing fingers at this kid and his parents you should take a look at your kid(s) and see what intelligent things they are up to.
Ok Rob, I shall break it down for you into more easy to understand statements.
I don't need to know what is on this boys mind. He told us what was on his mind. He wanted this device to, among other things, melt the rubber of his sister's shoes. See, I don't have to be psychic when he actually gives us his motive. There is the fact, known all over the world, that heat hurts. That more heat hurts more. It doesn't require a science degree or a huge warning label on the device. As for now being aware of how things work in Switzerland, do the basic laws of physics change when crossing your borders?
I really don't know the reason you must be 18 there in order to learn to drive. Perhaps the Swiss teenagers do not mature as quickly as others. I simply assumed they did, so I'm sorry for that "blanket statement". I never said that 15 year old boys are grown up. I said they begin making an attempt to grow up. Again, I am sorry for assuming that this also applied to Swiss teenagers. I assume based on the 18 to learn to drive bit, that you consider 23-24 to be adult.
As for $50 not being much money for a 15 year old. After Googling, I realized that the Median Income Level for Switzerland is over twice that of the United States. So again, you are correct. Clearly this fine young man thought nothing of shelling out the pocket change required for the purchase of this "toy".
To sum it up for you since I really want to drop this whole Special Olympics topic, the child bought something for a reason, used it to do something he hadn't thought about ahead of time, and is now going to pay the price for it for the rest of his life. Idiot? Yes. End of discussion.
Not really an end to anything. As for this boy telling us what he was going to do with it, that's another assumtion on your part. Nowhere in the article did it state those were his words. It could have been the doctor's interpretation. The quote was not attributed to anyone.
Why you felt the need to be sarcastic is beyond me but to answer you, no, the laws of physics do not change. How you took my statement on how things work here and thought I was refering to those laws is beyond me. I was refering to the age of driving and education. There are options of education. Kindergarten is not maditory here but is available for children between 5 and 6. School becomes maditory at the age of 7 where children start elementary school which continues for at least 8 years but usually goes for 9. At that point there are a few variations on what can happen but without going into all of it I'll leave it to you to explore. At the age of 16 kids finish school and for one reason or another do not continue but go into the work force. Some enter into an apprenticeship while others go into family business or something else all together. Others go to Gymnasium short term (4.5 years) or long term (6.5 years). From there they may choose to go on to university.
Driving a car starts at the age of 18, pressumably to keep auto related deaths down. That said, small motorcycles (under 50cc) may be driven from the age of 14 at a maximum speed of 30 Km/h. Motorcycles (under 50cc with a maximum speed of 45 Km/h) may be driven from the age of 16. Some people go their entire life without driving. That's because mass transportation here is excellent.
I am not familiar with "green" lasers but I do have the red kind. I've had the beam hit exposed flesh on my body and have not suffered any burns. That said, I am guessing from the article that "green" produces heat because it's more powerful.
Why you would bring the Special Olympics into this is proof of how callous you are toward people with special needs. Guess that would make you the idiot. Eod.
Perhaps not in this article Rob, but I didn't stick to just one source of information, as you seem to have. I am using the information provided by Lucerne Cantonal Hospital itself as stated by Stefan Wyrsch, M.D., Philipp B. Baenninger, M.D., Martin K. Schmid, M.D., and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
As for your most detailed information on both schooling and the speed of small motorcycles, I can't really find a place in my comments where it helped explain anything.
As for lasers, I also am not an expert on them. But I did however take a few mins to read up on the information provided by those who ARE. I own a small little red laser pointer just like you. I use it to tease the hell of my amazing cat. That's the thing though, our little red pointers are less than 5 milliwatts. The one this kid was using was 30 times that. Plus, the human eye is anywhere from 10 to 50 times more sensitive to the green spectrum than the red. The green laser is also more complicated to make. All of this is information your young man easily could have looked up since he was already on the internet to order it.
As for the earlier comment you made, concerning we should wonder what our own kids are doing, and not this young man, I say you are correct. I simply have my kids read this article, have a chuckle at the stupid thing this kid did, and before I can even warn them, they are informing me they have much more common sense than this guy.
Reminds me of something in a "A Christmas Story" kind of way!
Well, at least he didn't damage his vision too badly- 20/50 just means he'll need weak perscription glasses or contact lenses. He probably could have done much worse...
Not necessarily. The retina damage is permanent, and that comes with its own set of problems.
holly crap what a tard i swear at 15 ur almost ready to drive if not already makes you wonder how he does anything else in life his brain should be able to comprehend wtf that would do..... And these people make nice watches......
What kind of "laser pointer" burns holes in balloons and sneakers? Already, any laser has a warning sticker on it to not shine in your eyes. But one that burns holes in things should have a law against selling it to non-industrial customers!
Perhaps this kid did his own "science project" and hacked the laser to output more power than what it's supposed to do. Otherwise, I can see a serious lawsuit coming on. But then again it's the Swiss so who knows how it works there.
You can buy 'laser pointers' that are that powerful. They tend to be fairly expensive, but I've seen at least one for around $200.00 that is a blue laser that is powerful enough to burn things and worse yet looks like a light saber.
How the hell can you buy a laser pointer that can pop balloons and burn holes in sneakers? How is the sale of such an item legal? It is disturbing that a minor could obtain such a device --- I dont trust kids with the remote, much less a laser pointer .....unreal.
This is the story from the 60's about the kid who lit the M80 firecracker and forgot to pitch it. (M80's were banned sometime later--it disassembled the kid's hand.) Great explosion, though.
I am sorry for this kid, but adults have done worse exploring science on the edge... google 'phlogiston', lots of guys died because of that. 20/50 vision isn't that bad. I lived with 20/200 and coke bottles for 60 years until they replaced my lenses with plastic ones.
My guess: If this kid isn't totally traumatized by the idiotic non-story publicity, he'll be a great scientist...
Is he an honorary Darwin Award winner? Now he can't see well enough to mate :)
That can be done by touch. :D
Perhaps someone who is concerned about his future contamination of the gene pool will hold him down and sear his junk off with a 1 watt blue laser.
Am I the only one that actually READ the article? This was in SWITZERLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I doubt very much that they have the same legal system that we do
Any bright light or flash of bright light will do damage to your eyes...stare at the sun and it's going to hurt, flash a camera at close range and color rods will be damaged. A warning statement on the product written in braille probably wouldn't be very effective.
Further proof that you can't fix stupid. It's hard to feel sympathy for someone who did something this brainless. He's lucky that he isn't permanently blind.
What I really fear is that kids or anybody can get these devices via internet and use in maliciously against anybody in the public. They could be out in public and just indiscriminately point it at ANYBODY from what,? a range of hundreds of feet to miles away and blind somebody. You could just be out in public and suddenly go blind and not know what hit you. These are dangerous and in the wrong hands could cause blindness. These should not be sold at all except in special industrial circumstances. It worries me that somebody COULD use this to cause harm to others. Imagine somebody using this as a weapon! There are a lot of sick people in the world that might think this fun or maybe that neighbor decides that your dog did his business once too many times on his lawn and decides to point his laser at you as you get into your car in the morning from his front window, SCARY!!!!!
hahahahahahahaha! What a retard. He's lucky it was his eyes and not someone elses!
Folks, what is scary and 'tarded, to use another commentator's vernacular, is that you are all so shocked and dismayed at how a 15 yr old boy got his hands on such a device. In reality, this is probably one of the more mundane contraband that is freely available on the internet. As for shock over a kid having a credit card...what century are you in?!? He probably used PayPal. The Chinese will sell anything over the internet, or through any other channel for that matter. I recommend that you stop judging the antics of this 15-yr old...anyone who has been one knows that they make dumb mistakes. (Am I the only one here who has curiously glanced toward the sun, despite warnings from mother?) Instead of flippant hypocrisy, use his misfortune to make yourself aware of the risks of this new world we live in. That laser did its damage in a millisecond. I doubt many of us innately knew that risk before reading this article. Now we know, and now we can warn our kids. Thank you Swiss teenager for the lesson that you shared!
from what I gather reading this rticle the boy was trying to put on a laser light show and accidentally shown the beam into his eyes from the mirror. So while this is defidentally a (relativly) tragic accident for him, it was just that, an accident. Nowhere in the article did I read that he intentionally shown the beam into hiseyes, so I don't understand why there are all the comments calling him or 15 year olds in general stupid. Yes it would have been the smart thing to tell his parents and get help right away, but the waiting was done out of a combination of fear of getting in trouble and hope that the damage would repair itself.
And as for the parents not being involved, anda credit card being needed to buy things online, do you have any idea how easy it is to get a prepaid credit card? go to walmart, kmart, target, walgreens, rite aid, cvs, or any other chain pharmacy, grocery store, discount retail store, gas station/convienece store or even small corner store and you can purchase a prepaid visa or mastercard, or in some places a prepaid american express. There is no age limit to buy them, no id required anybody with cash in their hand or bank account can get one, two or ten of them, so it is entirely possible that he was able to order this without his parents knowledge, and the wouldn't have even seenthe package if the boy was the one who brougt in the mail.
That's about as much of an 'accident' as chopping off your hand to see how sharp your axe is. It's pure self-regulating stupidity.
A quick Google comes up with:
150MW POWERFUL GREEN LASER POINTER PEN Price:$ 44 Shipping: Free shipping worldwide Availability:In Stock Manufacturer:China
Payment method is PayPal
With over 700 more items listed
Seems easy as hell to order one and have it sent to you no matter where you live.
Cheap green lasers are much more dangerous than expensive ones. They almost always lack the IR filtration stage, allowing HUGE amounts of invisible IR light to escape. If fact, that's what is actually popping the balloons, lighting the matches and melting the sneakers. A filtered 150mW green laser would not be powerful enough to do any of these things, although it would still blind you (through a somewhat different mechanism than the cheap laser, which literally cooks your eye).