A seven-year-old girl lost an eye after a suspected vaping battery exploded.
Ruby Grainger was walking in a field near her home in Fortunestown, Tallaght, Ireland, on Oct. 5 when something exploded in a nearby fire and hit her right eye, her mother Ciara Grainger said.
The next thing I knew she was running back to the house screaming. I couldn’t believe it. “He had battery acid in his eye,” Mrs. Grainger told the Irish independentand added that blood was running down her daughter’s face when she got home.
A family member checked the fire scene after Ruby was hit and reportedly found remains of several burned vaporizers.
Grainger, 32, said: “Whether it was a vape pen or not, I’m still not sure, but something exploded in the fire.” He shot him straight in the face and has been in agony ever since.
Ruby Grainger (pictured) was walking in a field near her home in Fortunestown, Tallaght, Ireland, on October 5 when something exploded in a nearby fire and hit her right eye.
‘She just collapsed crying, her eye was already swollen and I knew something was terribly wrong. We immediately took her to the hospital.
The girl was rushed to a hospital and soon after underwent emergency eye surgery. Heartbreakingly, her family was told after the surgery (which had a 50 per cent chance of success) that Ruby had lost her eye.
“It was very devastating for Ruby as she is very aware that she is bullied by children her age,” Grainger wrote on a fundraising page she created for her daughter’s medical costs.
‘Ruby now has to wear a prosthetic eye which will be difficult for a 7-year-old to get used to. “Ruby is going to have to experience some very big life changes for a girl her age,” the devastated mother said.
He added: ‘Ruby will have to change schools because (after) losing her right eye she will have to go to a school with vision problems.
“Ruby will also not be able to play the way she used to and will also have to learn to balance again because she has a blind side.”
Little Ruby, who is a “bright, positive child,” has had “nightmares every night” since the incident, her mother said.
Grainger also said fires like the one on the day Ruby was attacked break out near her home “almost every day,” making the property “sometimes feel like a war zone,” but she says despite the reports to the guard and the council, nothing has been done.
