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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Zara Woodcock

Anthea Turner warns fans to get their eyes checked after accident almost blinded her

Anthea Turner encouraged her fans to always get their eye injuries checked after she was almost blinded.

The 61-year-old accidentally hit her eye with a curtain rod while at a hotel last year.

She sought medical treatment after over a week and was told she could have been blinded if she left it any longer.

Taking to Instagram to share snaps of her wounded eye, she said: " Just posting these now because I want to keep you safe - You might have seen in the press 2 weeks ago a story I told of a near-fatal accident I had with my left eye, but because there were no outside visible signs I did the classic thing which is, think it’ll all go away,

"But what I didn’t realise is I’d actually due to the impact of a pull-down blind cord smacking me square in the eye made a tear in my retina and came frighteningly close to a retinal detachment which results in permanent blindness."

She continued: "If you sustain ANY injury to your eye go and get it checked out immediately, I did after a week then was literally rushed into an operating room and due to the expertise of a vitreoretinal surgeon @chien_wong_ at @ocl_vision I live to fight another day."

Anthea was hit in the eye by a curtain rod (antheaturner/Instagram)
The star was almost blinded (antheaturner/Instagram)

Anthea went on to imagine how her life could have changed drastically and said it 'frightens the hell out of her'.

The star previously talked to The Mirror about sustaining the injury during a stay in an old hotel where 'great big blinds covered enormous bedroom windows'.

“On each pull cord was a plastic ping pong ball-shaped toggle and one morning, as I pulled up the blind, I let go of the cord too quickly. As the blind ricocheted up, the toggle hit me square in my left eye," she said.

The star immediately checked for any visible damages to her face but thought everything looked fine.

She went about her business, which included a day of filming. However, mid-way through recording, she noticed a deterioration in the quality of her vision.

She urged fans to immediately get eye injuries checked (antheaturner/Instagram)
The television presenter began seeing red strobes and tiny little red drops (Getty Images)

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Almost 10 days later, she finally underwent scans to see why she was seeing red flashing strobes and tiny little red drops.

It was revealed that she had a tear to her left retina - the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye.

During the nine days following her accident, the retina, which sends visual images to the brain through the optic nerve, had come dangerously close to detaching. Retinal ­detachment is a medical emergency. If left untreated, blindness can occur.

Dr Chien Wong, the consultant ophthalmologist and vitreoretinal surgeon who operated
on Anthea, said: “Anthea’s retina was starting to lift at the edges around the tear. She came perilously close to losing the sight in her eye."

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