Two Oregon men, 70-year-old Lou Tomososki and high school friend Roger Duvall recall when they were looking up at the sun 55 years ago, in 1962, with their naked eyes to check out the eclipse for 20 seconds. 20 seconds that burned their retinas and caused permanent blindness.
“Nothing has changed,” 70-year-old Lou Tomososki told NBC’s “Today” show of the damage he sustained. “It doesn’t get any worse or better.”
“We both got burned at the same time,” Tomososki told “Today.” “He got the left eye and I got the right eye.”
“We didn’t know right that second that we damaged our eyes,” Duvall, also 70, told The Washington Post. “At that time, we thought we were invincible, as most teenagers do.”
Tomososki said they had been warned to use a pinhole projector box to look at the eclipse safely. Because they didn’t, he said, he now has a little blind spot in the center of his right eye.
(via "Men Partially Blinded From A Solar Eclipse Warn Others To Watch Safely")
Now both men are warning people who plan to watch the eclipse on Monday to do so with the proper safety protections.
Doctors warn that even if the sun is completely covered, the sun rays can still get into your eyes without you noticing it, and cause damage:
“When you partially obscure the sun with the moon, it’s not so bright, and it’s not so painful to actually look at it,” Dr. G. Baker Hubbard of the Emory Eye Center in Atlanta told Fox 5. “But, even though it’s not painful, those harmful rays are still getting in your eyes and focused right onto the center of your retina, and that’s where it does the damage.”
(via "Men Partially Blinded From A Solar Eclipse Warn Others To Watch Safely")
Best to use the safety eclipse glasses. Make sure that they are the real safety eclipse glasses, and not fake...or recalled for quality.
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