Brave Chloe on the mend

Sep 13 2008 by Dave Black, The Journal

A BRAVE schoolgirl who was hit in the eye by a pellet from an airgun will not be having surgery to repair her damaged iris, her family has been told.

It was thought that 11-year-old Chloe Laidlaw would need an operation on her injured right eye after medics discovered a tear in the iris following the shooting incident three weeks ago.

But now specialists at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary say surgery will not be required and her eye is best left to heal of its own accord.

Chloe, who lives with her father Paul, 36, and mother Ashley, 35, in Cowpen, Blyth, Northumberland, this week left the house for the first time since sustaining the injury, when she went back to join classmates at the town’s Tynedale Middle School.

Police spoke to the parents of an eight-year-old local boy following the incident, in which Chloe was hit in the eye at close range by a pellet from a ball bearing gun while playing outside her home.

With the shot being fired so close to her face, hospital medics said she is lucky not to have been blinded by the rubber pellet.

Doctors say they are pleased with her progress, although there are still fears that the sight in her injured eye will never be 100% normal.

Yesterday Mr Laidlaw, a dental technician, said Chloe visited the RVI on Monday and has been taken off drops which were being put into her eye. “They are not going to operate because the eye is healing now, and I am quite pleased that she will not be having surgery.

“Chloe has had to rest up in the house because of pressure on the eye and has been having drops to dilate her pupil. She is saying things are still a bit blurry but it has improved from what it was and she has got some sight back in the injured eye.

“It is now just a question of waiting to see how it heals. Hopefully it will heal completely but we have been told it will probably never be 100% again. She has to go back to hospital in another month or two for a follow-up check.

“She went back to school on Tuesday.... She is still a bit wary about the possibility of seeing the boy concerned in the street again, but she seems OK.”

Chloe’s parents have been told by doctors that the injury means she is likely to develop cataracts, which would cloud her vision.