CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Local teen left partially blind after buying costume contacts at Gibraltar Trade Center

WXYZ.com: A St. Clair Shores teen was left partially blind in one eye after wearing a pair of costume contacts. A month later, the Lakeview High School senior faces possible surgery.

“I wish I never did it, to be honest,” said Leah Carpenter.

It was supposed to be part of a fun Halloween costume the for 17-year-old and her powder puff team. All of the girls were dressing up as zombies with creepy contact lenses.

2 comments:

Shahzad Khan said...

During Halloween season, there is a clear sense of danger that goes along with trick or treating and candy. The last thing that people usually think about is the dangers in wearing their costumes. As someone who knows many people who have worn contact lenses for the sake of a look, this is both eye-opening and scary. This article talks about the contact lenses at the booth at Gibraltar Trade Center being FDA approved, this is highly fishy to me because it doesn't seem like these companies wold even work with the FDA, let alone make prescription lenses. This situation brings up very valid concerns regarding the safety of actors when using cosmetics, not only do we have to pay a great amount of attention to the allergies of actors, but this calls for an extra step in truly fact and safety checking all materials used in hair and makeup, just like we do for every other department because as we see here, something as simple as a tampered contact could prove to be drastic.

Megan Jones said...

Oh my god that is really scary, I feel so sorry for that poor girl. I actually had no idea that even colored contacts are something that requires a prescription, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't realize that. One thing I'm curious about was when she realized her eyes had been damaged. Did simply putting in the contacts damage her cornea or was is something to the with the fact that they were playing football while wearing them? Was it an allergy she developed? Either way it is still completely unacceptable that she was sold these contacts without some time of safety warning, and it's very troubling that the vendor didn't know that way they were doing was illegal. I'm curious to see how other Halloween stores will respond to this story, and I really hope that her surgery is successful and that her vision will fully recover.