A USW fresher’s cornea was ripped out from wearing Halloween contact lenses

She bought the £7 cat-eyes for her leopard costume


A University of South Wales fresher’s Halloween night out became a real horror show after one of her cat-eye contact lenses ripped out her cornea.

After coming home from a night out on Saturday, Tia Goode tried to take her Halloween contact lenses out, but was shocked to find that she couldn’t remove them.

Culprit cat-eyes

At 1.30am, when Tia arrived back home, she tried to remove the contacts but failed.

She said: I attempted to get the right one out first, which was the bad one.

“I had to wake someone up and it took about forty minutes to get out.”

Instant regret

After the agony of getting the first one out, Tia couldn’t bear the pain of the other but luckily got it out on her own.

The psychology fresher told The Tab: “My eyes were watering like mad and the right one was still killing.

“I tried to go to sleep but couldn’t because the pain was so bad, so I gave up and went up the hospital.”

Tia finally saw a doctor after four hours of waiting in A&E on the busy Halloween evening.

She said: “The doctor had to put anaesthetic in my eye so I could open it.

“He had a good look and prodded my eye with a cotton bud because he thought some of the lens was still stuck in there.

“But it was actually because my cornea had ripped so bad.

“The lens was so dry that it had stuck to my eyeball and ripped the cornea completely out with it.”

The cornea is the clear surface that covers the front of the eyes and protects it from bacteria.

Luckily for Tia it normally takes around a week to grow back.

She is currently on antibiotics and is seeing a specialist on Friday to see if she has long-term damage.

On whether she would buy eye contacts again, Tia said: “I’d recommend not to wear them as they’re super dangerous and I didn’t realise.

“My grandparents were telling me not to wear them all week because of what was on the news.”

The USW undergrad is carrying on with the fancy dress spirit, now dressing as a pirate because of the eye patch she has to wear.