Zombie Contacts Leave Girl Partially Blinded In Right Eye

Creepy contact lenses may enhance your Halloween costume, but are they really worth potentially going blind?

Seventeen-year-old Leah Carpenter of St. Clair Shores, Michigan is now partially blinded in her right eye after her zombie contact lenses damaged her cornea, according to CBS News--a highly organized group of cells and proteins that form the front layer of the eye. She bought the "WickedEyez" pair of contacts at a public weekend market in Gibraltar Trade Center, Mount Clemens, for just $26, according to Tech Times.

Just a few hours after wearing the contacts during a school event, Carpenter's vision started to bother her. However, she had difficulties taking the contacts out. The next morning, according to her mother, her right eye was swollen shut.

Though Carpenter is beginning to regain some of the vision lost from the eye, she may also require eye surgery, according to The Detroit Free Press.

This is not the first time that health officials have seen a problem with non-prescription lenses that were not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

"What happens to people's eyes after just one evening of wearing non-prescription costume contact lenses is tragic," Dr. Thomas Steinemann, a professor of ophthalmology at MetroHealth Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and a clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, said in a statement on the academy's website. "I understand how tempting it is to dress up your eyes on Halloween without a prescription and using over-the-counter lenses, but people should not let one night of fun ruin their vision for a lifetime."

For more information on how to safely purchase decorative lenses, click here, courtesy of the FDA. 

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