A four-year-old child in Roseburg, Oregon at International Drone Day in March 2015.
An 18-month-old boy has lost an eye after being hit by a drone flown by a family friend. Oscar Webb’s eye was sliced in half by a propeller after the operator, Simon Evans, lost control of the drone.
The toddler, from Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, will need several operations before he can have a prosthetic eye fitted.
It was the first drone injury Oscar’s surgeon had seen, but she said it was “inevitable” there would be many more.
Mr Evans said: “It was up for about 60 seconds. As I brought it back down to land it just clipped the tree and span round.
“The next thing I know I’ve just heard my friend shriek and say ‘Oh God no’ and I turned around and just saw blood and his baby on the floor crying.”
Oscar’s mother, Amy Roberts, said she was in the ambulance taking Oscar to hospital in Birmingham when he opened his eye.
“What I saw, I can still see it now, and what I saw or what I thought I saw was the bottom half of his eye and it’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
“I just hoped and prayed all the way there that what I saw wasn’t true and wasn’t real.”
Before Oscar’s accident seven weeks ago his family were unaware of the potential safety issues surrounding drones.
The drone shown in the BBC television report
Faye Mellington, consultant in oculoplastics and orbital surgery at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, said she and her team “knew straight away the outlook for Oscar’s vision long term was extremely poor”.
The little boy can still see out of his uninjured eye.
Top Photo: Michael Sullivan – The News Review/Associated Press
Source: BBC