Boy, 12, almost loses eye after Lynx can ‘exploded’ in fire

A 12-year-old boy almost lost his eye after his friend tossed a Lynx can into a fire which exploded.

Kai was playing with friends in Tile Hill, Coventry, when they lit a fire.

One of the friends threw the highly flammable aerosol can into the blaze and it exploded, hitting Kai in the eye.

He was rushed to University Hospital Coventry, before being transferred to Birmingham Children’s Hospital for emergency surgery.

Although his eye sustained damage, the surgeons were able to insert a stitch that should mean it will heal completely.

Warning: Photo of blood below

But the doctors told his mum Selina Lampett, if the can had hit him slightly further to one side he probably would have lost the eye.

Selina said she has often been worried something like this will happen to Kai, who has ADHD.

‘I go through phases where it is almost like I am expecting someone to come through the door saying something has happened,’ she explained.

‘But it is always when you are not thinking it, and I was not thinking anything (when it actually happened).’

The 33-year-old said Kai had asked to spend the evening with friends on Saturday, March 1.

He had only been gone around half an hour when his friends ‘frantically’ rushed back to her property to say that her son had been seriously hurt.

She said when she saw Kai he was ‘unrecognisable’ and quickly dialled 999.

Initially doctors weren’t able to get to his eye because it was full of blood.

‘Basically, they could not work out if it had damaged the back of the eye and essentially detached from the retina in the end (which could cause him to) lose his sight completely,’ Selina explained.

‘And it would also end up that he would lose sight in the other eye because your immune system attacks, and they could not work out the damage that had actually happened in his eye.’

She continued: ‘When he came out of surgery, they said they could not believe the luck of him as the bit that was damaged and had detached was in the side of his eyeball, so they put a stitch inside the eye to put that back together, and luckily he will probably keep his sight.

”He is so lucky, they literally said if he had turned two inches to the side, it would have taken his eye out!

‘Can you imagine for a 12-year-old that goes and enjoys his life to be fully blind?’

Selina hopes Kai’s accident will serve as a warning to other young people and their parents.

‘One of the hardest things to do is get through to the child.

‘I consistently would say to him every time he goes out: “Well, do not be stupid”. But most of it is because these children do not think, and his answer to me all the time was: “Nothing is going to happen”.

‘It does happen, and I believe that there are a lot of children out there who are the same as my child and will never learn until something does happen!

‘Please show your children the dangers of these aerosol cans.’

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