For 16 year old Kurtis Thomas and his friends, one Saturday afternoon, back in April of 2004, the plan was to have a little backyard warfare, playing paintball. But, what was supposed to be a few hours of just “boys being boys” type fun, turned into tragedy. In between rounds, Kurtis suffered a devastating blow to the eye and nearly became blind. He was not wearing any protective gear at the time.

“At first my eye went completely numb, and I didn’t feel it at all and I didn’t even know it hit me in the eye, I didn’t know what was going on, my brother carried me into the house and then he told me it was my eye, and so I washed it out and looked in the mirror and noticed it was pretty bad and so then my dad came and got me and brought me into the hospital, later on that day when I was in the hospital it built up a lot of pressure and it really felt like my head was going to pop,” says Kurtis Thompson.

Kurtis’ left eye would never be the same. “The natural lens inside his eye was partly dislocated and the pupil, actually the iris of his eye, which is what regulates the light getting in his eye had been severely damaged, so that his pupil was completely dilated, so he always had a maximum amount of light getting into his eye, a lot of glare symptoms, a lot of sensitivity to light, and a decrease in the quality of his vision. Then he developed a cataract. He has not only a cataract but the support mechanism of the lens of his eye is also damaged,” says Dr. Kenneth Rosenthal of New York Eye & Ear Hospital.

Kurtis’ poor eyesight is robbing him of his teenage years. It’s preventing him from enjoying his passion for sports and has made school a tremendous challenge. “My vision has been slowly degrading, and so I play a lot of sports, so it made it hard to do things, I had to adjust and learn to do things differently and also my pupil is really wide open so the sun really affects me a lot. It got so hard to see the board at first and sometimes the light in the rooms will give me a headache and I have to close my eye or hold it during class,” says Kurtis.

Kurtis and his family bounced from doctor to doctor desperate for answers on how he could restore his vision. He finally met with eye surgeon, Dr. Kenneth Rosenthal, who determined that Kurtis was a candidate for a rare procedure called an iris prothesis.

“We are using a special device called an iris prosthetic system and this is a new device that we have been fortunate to be able to use for patients who have these injuries, it takes the place of the natural iris of the eye,” says Dr. Rosenthal.

To date, there have been nearly 2,000 iris prosthesis procedures performed around the world. In fact, it is not yet FDA approved, but, clinical trials are underway. The actual device is made out of a substance similar to plexy glass, flexible, but rigid enough to go into the eye and maintain its size and shape. The procedure can take anywhere from a half hour to an hour, but, depending on the severity of trauma to the eye, up to three hours.

It’s been just a few weeks since Kurtis’ surgery and he’s already back to shooting hoops. “The first thing I noticed once I got the surgery, was colors are more vibrant and you see more depth out of things with both eyes than one eye, and it’s a lot easer to do things now that I can see out of both eyes,” says Kurtis.

In terms of recovery, according to Dr. Rosenthal, some patients have come in the next day, post-surgery and are completely “WOWED!” by their new-found vision…but, for patients who have sustained severe trauma it could take any where from three to six months to heal and reap the full benefits of the surgery.

When it comes to paintball safety, the advice is simple, never ever take off your head shield, which should combine eye and ear protection as well. Most documented paintball eye injuries have occurred when players remove their shield even for a just a few seconds.

If you are going to play paintball, you need to specifically use a paintball mask. Not sunglasses, ski goggles, safety goggles, or shooting glasses. Paintball masks are made for the sport and must meet strict industry standards. Nothing else is specifically made to withstand the impact of a paintball going over 270 mph.

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