A MAN who was blinded in an industrial accident has regained partial vision following an operation in which his son's tooth was grafted into his eye.
Robert McNichol (57), from Co Mayo, lost his sight when his eyes were splashed with liquid aluminium after an explosion in November 2005.
When Irish doctors told Mr McNichol there was nothing they could do to restore his sight he feared he might never see again.
However, a visit to a professor in Nottingham, England, gave him a new hope as he learned about a procedure called Osteo-Odonto- Keratoprosthesis (OOKP), which was available at an eye hospital in Brighton.
Mr McNichol was informed there were many risks involved in the intensive surgery, which could be performed on one eye only and offered a 65 per cent chance of him partly regaining his sight.
The OOKP technique was developed in Italy in the 1960s and it involves a support for an artificial cornea being created by a tooth and the surrounding jaw bone.
Mr McNichol's son, Robert jnr, volunteered one of his teeth when he heard about the operation. It was then shaped to create a rectangular base that provided a frame on which an artificial lens could sit.
The procedure involved two separate operations, which took 10 and five hours respectively. It was completed last December and since then Mr McNichol has been delighted with the results.
"Now I have enough sight for me to get around and I can watch television. I have come from complete darkness to being able to do simple things," he told RTÉ News.
