[/u]Those detached retinas can really be bad. I had a buddy in his early to mid 70s , who married a woman from Thailand and they owned some property over there. So every year he would travel back and forth to Thailand with his wife. He was there one year and went to open up a bottle of water and the cap blew off and hit him in his left eye. And he ended up with a detached retina. The eye doctor over there told him not to get on a plane and try to fly home because
the altitude could damage his eye permanently. So he had an eye doctor over there work on his eye and it ended up being so butchered he couldn't shoot anymore with his left eye and he was always a left-handed shooter. He got back to the States and went to see his eye doctor and his eye doctor here told him that he could have flown home and it shouldn't have damaged his eye but it was too late by then. And he could have repaired his eye. But it was too late. He never was the same. He tried to shoot right handed, but could never do very well at all. He had a left-handed Perazzi that he always used, but after that accident he never could shoot right-handed very well, either. Always be careful when you open up a cold plastic bottle of water in the summer. I've heard of the cap blowing off more than once over the years. Ever since then anytime I opened up a bottle of pop or water I turned it away from my face.
I am 77 now and around 18 years ago I was hunting and on the way home I happened to close my right eye and could only see a blur out of my left. When I got home I told me wife and at the time I didn't have an eye doctor because we had moved. My wife called and finally found someone and he referred me to another doctor who saw me the next day in this office, he opened it up just for me. He looked at it and told me that I had a split in my retina, and he referred to it as a curtain at half way and if it went all the way I would be blind. He lasered it. Going forward a few years we were on vacation with the grandchildren in Florida and my wife and I were going food shopping. At this time my vision was 20/20 and 20.30 in the right eye so I wasn't wearing glasses. When we were at the store I was having trouble reading some of the labels. I thought it could have been from being in the water. The next morning it was the same so I called my doctor in Pennsylvania and he said to go see an ophthalmologist. I went and was told I would need to have surgery as I had a detached retina. The ophthalmologist asked me when I was going home and said Sunday, this was on a Tuesday and he said that[u] I would not be able to fly because it could detach. He operated on me and I received a buckle. I found out later that the eye is removed and it is either lasered or sewn. Got home and my doctor the same one who did the original laser told me I got the gold standard of treatment. Still see this same doctor and he is the only one I see in his whole office.
So whatever that doctor told your father I think the Thai doctor knew what he was talking about.
Sorry your friends father.
