Like many people who have had LASIK surgery, Leigh Stanger often starts her day by using eye drops to soothe her dry eyes. Unfortunately, that daily habit turned to disaster when she realized that what she put in her eye was actually nail glue.

The incident happened on the morning of June 6 when Stanger, 43, woke up with “really dry” eyes. She told Newsweek that she rolled over and “instinctively grabbed the bottle” that was on the night stand, tilted her head back, and opened her eyes wide.

Only, it was not a bottle of eye drops after all. What Stanger, of Maryland, had used was the nail glue she had used days before and left on the table. She realized her mistake almost instantly.

“It immediately burned, and when I closed my eye, it instantly glued my eye shut,” Stanger said. “I was frantically trying to open my eyes, and I could feel my eyelashes melting together. I was in the bathroom running water on my eye, trying to open it and I could not. I was afraid my eyelid was going to be glued to my eyeball.”

Stanger and her boyfriend rushed to the local emergency room.

After a few hours of waiting, doctors placed Vaseline on the eye to try and loosen the glue, but ultimately Stanger had to be transferred to the ophthalmology department at the nearest Johns Hopkins Hospital. They saw her immediately and used optical ointment every 20 minutes to loosen the glue in her eyelashes. Stanger was also given morphine for the severe pain.

“My whole face hurt, my sinuses hurt, my head hurt and my eye hurt. It was one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced,” Stanger said.

After several hours, Stanger’s inner eye finally started to open as it had the least amount of glue. Doctors were able to keep prying it apart and once they got to the middle of Stanger’s eye, they used scissors to cut through the glue.

It was incredibly scary and painful for Stanger, as she was concerned about losing her vision in that eye, or perhaps even the eye itself.

More than 12 hours after using the nail glue, Stanger was finally able to reopen her eye. It was a moment she feared may never happen again, as she told Newsweek that she “immediately burst into tears.” There was still some glue inside the eye however, as the ophthalmologist had to use tweezers to pick out the dried shards.

“When she told me to open my eyes and I opened them for the first time, there were happy tears. She checked my vision, diluted my eyes and gave me a full eye exam. That’s when she saw a very large corneal abrasion, as well as multiple abrasions and chemical burns inside my lower lid and on my eye,” Stanger said.

There is still some glue stuck to Stanger’s eyelid and eyelashes, but she has been given ointment and antibiotic eye drops to continue using. Unfortunately, she has lost most of her eyelashes, and the vision in that eye is still blurry due to the abrasion, but she is expected to make a full recovery.

Stanger considers herself lucky that the repercussions were not more severe, and now she urges others to always be cautious.

Stanger said: “The doctor told me that she sees it all the time, unfortunately it’s not uncommon. I’m sure there’s some people out there who aren’t as lucky as I was. My daughter does her own nails, and I would absolutely lose it if anything like that happened to my child.

“What if I was alone when it happened, or what if a child does this and they’re alone? It’s just an unthinkably scary situation, and it is crazy that they are allowed to put nail glue in bottles that look exactly like eye drops. It is important to read any label before you put something in your eye, which I’ve learned the hard way."

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