Thanks to some other duties, I missed the scary injury Allen Ray suffered last week during Villanova's loss to Pitt in the Big East Tournament. Here's the video:
For those of you who are asking, "Did that dude's eye just pop out of his head?" the answer is an emphatic yes. The good news is that it appears that Ray is ok, and should be ready in time to return to the court to play in the NCAA tournament.
The even better news is that has horrific as the injury might look, a complete and full recovery seems to be the norm. Once my podcasting partner Rob Visconti explained what had happened, I immediately remembered an episode of ER from last season where the injury was depicted.
Thankfully, the intrepid Cecil Adams has examined this before:
In Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine (1897), George Gould and Walter Pyle report several cases of what they call exophthalmos, protrusion of the eye from the orbit, or socket:* One man, upon getting up in the morning, blew his nose so violently that "to his horror his left eye extruded from the orbit. With the assistance of his wife it was immediately replaced and a bandage placed over it." Afterward the eyelid was swollen but apparently there was no permanent damage.
* In some other cases, eyes popped out following vomiting or excessive coughing.
* One fellow, "during a fire, was struck in the right eye by a stream of water from a hose, violently thrusting the eye backward. Contracting under the double influence of shock and cold, the surrounding tissues forced the eyeball from the orbit, and an hour later [the doctor] saw the patient with the eye hanging by the optic nerve and muscles. Its reduction was easy, and after some minor treatment vision was perfectly restored in the injured organ. Thirty months after the accident the patient had perfect vision, and the eye had never in the slightest way discommoded him."
In short, a scary injury, but one without permanent disability. Thanks to Sports Column for the video pointer.
Just FYI, I read something somewhere today (how’s that for a pointer, huh?) where his coach said that what actually happened was that his eyelid was pushed back behind his eye, giving the appearance that the eye had popped out.
Pretty much everything else I’ve read, though, indicates that it left the orbit.
Either way, that video totally freaks me out.
I was watching live, and every time they showed the replay and I saw that little flash of white, I kind of shuddered. What was odd was the way they kept replaying it and talking about how bad it looked, but the announcers never said anything about why exactly it looked so bad. For awhile, I thought I was hallunicating the eyeball thing. Thank god there’s confirmation that it was as obvious to everyone else as it was to me.