Posted on 12/04/2012 1:35:35 PM PST by Beaten Valve
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was in Portugal last week shooting a story for CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes, and he ended up being temporarily blinded for 36 hours.
He recounts the harrowing experience on his daytime talk show Anderson Live. In a nutshell, he was shooting out at sea, and sunlight reflecting off of the water burned his retina:
I wake up in the middle of the night and it feels like my eyes are on fire, my eyeballs and I think oh maybe I have sand in my eyes or something. I douse my eyes with water. Anyway, it turns out I have sunburned my eyeballs and I go blind. I went blind for 36 hours.
He took the picture above after visiting the doctor.
Video after the jump.
Oh, when I was a very little kid my father was a welder and I remember the warnings from my mother. Those warnings worked very well for me, LOL. Thanks for reminding me - I can see my father in my mind’s eye even now with that face shield...
Don’t play around with seamen without wearing sunglasses, Anderson...
Was he revved up like a d*uc#e?
I guess he wasn’t on the road to Damascus. Unfortunately.
I heard a one-eyed monster saturated him with some sort of gelatinous microbe.
Too bad he didn’t fall off his horse riding on the road to Damascus. Might have done him some good.
hahahahaa!
My roommate and I did this during a sunny spring ski day when I was 19 . Can’t believe I’m posting about my stupidity .
My roommate and I did this during a sunny spring ski day when I was 19 . Can’t believe I’m posting about my stupidity .
Well done!
That’s a good one, but the old saying that I was thinking of cautions one that too much, uh, self-gratification will cause blindness... lol...
This is really no joke and isn’t funny. Many early navigators were blind in one eye from taking sun sights by looking directly at the sun, a big reason indirect viewing devices, like sextants, were developed. Also, whenever there’s a solar eclipse, many people injure their retinas by looking directly at the sun.
Maybe he poked himself in the eye with another man’s.... you know....
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