Saving a Young Girl’s Eye
by Emily Bates

When an airbag damaged Heather Miller’s right eye more than a year ago, the 10-year-old Alabama girl was referred to the Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Heather was in good hands. The team of physicians at the Callahan Eye Foundation, which is the only eye specialty hospital in Alabama, assessed the situation and opted to repair the young girl’s eye.
      “By the time we arrived in Birmingham to see the eye specialist, Heather’s eye had swollen shut,” explains Heather’s mother Angel, who escaped the car crash with only minor injuries. “The doctors were unable to see her right eye, making it difficult to determine how much the eye had been damaged.”
      The doctors prevailed. As the swelling subsided, it was concluded that Heather’s right eye had sustained a blunt injury when the airbag exploded. Her dislocated lens was opaque from the trauma; this clouding of the lens was a cataract that affected her vision. Though a cataract is typically associated with aging, an eye injury may cause a young lens to become cataractous.
      Robert Morris, M.D. and Michael Roh, M.D. performed surgery to remove the clouded, displaced lens and to restore visual function by replacing the natural cataract lens with an artificial intraocular lens. The procedure, though similar to the procedure performed on older adults who have cataract surgery, can be much more complex in cases of trauma. A laser procedure to the peripheral retina was performed during Heather’s operation to prevent retinal detachment, which is a complication that often follows the type of injury Heather experienced. Heather’s retina was not torn or detached from the injury, but it did suffer from a type of bruising known as contusion retinopathy. The physicians made initial repairs to the damaged iris and pupilllary opening. Heather’s surgery was so successful that the A-student was soon enjoying regular activities, such as taking afternoon dance classes and devouring her favorite books.
       “Heather loves to read. Before her second surgery, Heather met her classroom’s reading goal. In her mind, she had to accomplish it before she went into surgery,” Angel describes. “She read and continued to read before the surgery. It became a personal goal that she just had to do.”
      With her goal firmly met, Heather underwent a second operation for complications of the intraocular lens placement and further repair of her damaged iris, which was torn due to the impact of the airbag. Dr. Roh, who represented the Helen Keller Foundation during its tenth annual teaching tour in China, repaired the iris so that it properly expands and contracts to monitor the amount of light that flows into the eye. With her vision restored, Heather now sees about 20/25 and, remarkably, does not have to wear glasses.
      “I have never seen a child so confident and trusting with her doctors and parents,” Angel says. “She bounced back from surgery so well. It never seemed to bother her. And she looks absolutely perfect.” Heather has seen a lot in the past year. An airbag saved her life but injured her eye. And the physicians at the Foundation successfully restored her sight.

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rev.July 2007