CBS 5 - KPHO Man recovers after shears impale eye socket

An 86-year-old Arizona man is expected to make a full recovery after his eye socket was impaled with a pair of pruning shears.

Leroy Luetscher of Green Valley suffers some slight swelling of his upper and lower lids and minor double vision in the affected eye following the July 30 accident, said Dr. Julie Wynne, assistant professor in the University of Arizona Department of Surgery.

Luetscher was working in his yard when he dropped a pair of pruning shears, Wynne said. When he went to pick up the shears, he lost his balance and fell face-down on the handle. The tool penetrated his eye socket underneath his eye and went down into his neck, Wynne said.

"Half of the pruning shears was sticking out and the other half was in his head," Wynne said.

Luetscher was rushed to University Medical Center's Level 1 Trauma Center, where he was attended to by a team of specialists.  

"The handle was actually resting on the external carotid artery in his neck," said Dr. Lynn Polonski, clinical assistant professor of ophthalmology.

The team was able to remove the shears, rebuild his orbital floor with metal mesh, and save his eye.

Luetscher said he knows he is lucky to be alive.

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