Vision Centre

Double Vision - Miracles save father and son's eyesight
Gold Coast Bulletin , 20 March 2003
By Peter Gleeson

MODERN medicine has provided the Frawley family of Beechmont with a classic case of 'double vision'. In an extraordinary procedure, Southport eye surgeon Dr Roger Welch is restoring vision to the left eye of 11-year-old Tom Frawley after a freak accident with a power drill. But his miracle work hasn't stopped there. Twenty eight years ago, aged 18, Tom's father, Lou Frawley, was blinded in the right eye from a workplace accident. After meeting Dr Welch through his son's accident, Mr Frawley will also regain the sight in his right eye. Tom's mother, Glenis, said yesterday she clearly remembered that fateful day when her son shrieked with pain after the whirring bit of a power drill penetrated his left eye by more than a centimetre. It stripped out the lens, scrambled the cornea and expelled fluids. "Blood and fluid was streaming from Tom's eye, so I covered it and rushed him to the hospital, but we had no idea how serious the injury was," she said. Tom's accident happened when he was visiting his grandfather.

He and a cousin, Mathew, 10, were using a drill to make a spinning top from a piece of turned wood. While Matthew used the drill, Tom watched closely from below but a 3mm bit glanced off the surface and into the centre of his left eye. Mrs Frawley said Tom had shown amazing courage and had simply got on with his life at home and school. "He was more concerned about missing trials for a state soccer team than with the surgery and we are proud of his cheerful and positive attitude," she said. "But he knows he broke all of our rules about going near tools, and is now happy that his story may help to prevent other children from suffering such injuries. "It was an accident and no one is to blame, but these things happen quickly with devastating results."

When Tom arrived at hospital his left eye, according to Dr Welch, resembled a squashed grape. Dr Welch immediately went to work to restore Tom's sight. Using nylon sutures with a dimension less than that of a human hair and scissors with blades less than 2mm long, he used micro-surgery to mend a massive wound branching across the cornea. He performed a vitrectomy, removing jelly from the back of the eye to enhance healing. A network of tiny sutures now holds the eye firmly together while nature takes course. Yesterday, 12 weeks after the accident, Tom and his family were told he would see from the eye again. After exhaustive tests, Dr Welch this week relayed the same news to Mr Frawley.

In 1975, Mr Frawley, an electrician, was cutting wire from a coil when it pierced the centre of his right eye. He was told he would never see from the eye again. Dr Welch is confident that implant surgery will restore vision for father and son. Tom will require both lens and cornea transplants while his father requires only a new, synthetic lens. The Frawley family have joined Dr Welch in a campaign to help educate children on the dangers of using tools or other objects that could damage their eyes. Dr Welch said when Tom arrived at the hospital his eye had been scrambled and when the drill came out, it took the lens with it. Dr Welch, and colleague, Dr John Ambler, who specialises in injuries at the back of the eye, elected to rest the injury following the microsurgery enabling natural healing and the gradual clearance of blood. They needed time to establish, without further surgery, whether the retina was damaged, a critical factor in determining their future options.