Errant Drone Cuts Toddler's Eyeball in Half

Mom says injury was 'the worst thing I've ever seen'
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 1, 2015 1:36 PM CST
Errant Drone Cuts Toddler's Eyeball in Half
In this photo taken June 11, 2015, a hexacopter drone is flown during a demonstration in Cordova, Md.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A toddler has lost an eye in an awful accident with an errant drone in the UK. Sixteen-month-old Oscar Webb was outside his family's home in Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, while a family friend was flying a drone seven weeks ago. "It was up for about 60 seconds," Simon Evans tells the BBC. "As I brought it back down to land it just clipped the tree" and spun out of control. The BBC report shows Evans with what looks like a kit-based quadcopter drone without propeller blade guards, per Mashable. Doctors say one of the drone's propellers cut Oscar's eyeball.

Surgeons tried to save the eye in emergency operations, but it eventually needed to be removed, reports the Telegraph. Doctors "did say that it was one of the worst eye incidents they'd seen," says the toddler's mom, Amy Roberts. Oscar will need to undergo more surgeries before he can be fitted with a prosthetic. Evans says the child's family has forgiven him for the accident, but he won't be flying drones again any time soon. "Since the accident, I haven't flown [the drone] once," he tells the BBC. "I look at the drones in the garage and I feel physically sick." (A toy helicopter sliced off the top of a man's head in Brooklyn.)

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