- Nick Kharufeh, 29, was celebrating the holidays with family and friends when a freak firework changed his life forever.
- Doctors discovered the entire top layer of Nick’s cornea had been burnt black, making it look like he’d lost an eye.
- Now four years since his accident, Nick is undergoing transplant surgery to save his sight.
Here Nick tells his story in his own words.
Biting into a hot dog, I took in the fun vibes at my aunt Carey’s party.
Aged 23, hanging out with my twin brother, David, and friend Taylor, also 23, we clinked our drinks.
When it got dark, we headed out to the front street to watch fireworks.
We were living in the US, so it was legal to set off fireworks at home.
And being Independence Day, July 4, in 2020, lots of people were getting in on the action.
‘What was that?’
Sitting on the footpath around 10 metres away from where the fireworks were being lit, we took in the pretty colours bursting in the sky.
Then, a massive BANG, like a bomb, exploded.
‘What was that?’ David said, as we jumped to our feet.
I felt fine, but as darkness enveloped my left eye, I realised I couldn’t see out of it.
Walking into the house, I found my mum, Angela, 47.
But Mum took one look at me and passed out.
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Aunt Carey whisked me over to sit on the stairs as a searing pain erupted in my left eye.
‘One of the fireworks exploded on the ground and I think the shrapnel hit you,’ Carey said.
A neighbour who was a nurse came over, cleaning the blood from my face.
I had no idea how bad it looked, but presumed it was pretty rough after Mum’s reaction.
‘Your eye is gone,’ the nurse gasped as she dabbed at my face.
‘Your eye is gone.’
What?! My life is over, I panicked.
David and I were training to be pilots, but there was no way I’d be able to fly with one eye.
Mum came and sat with me, but she couldn’t stop sobbing.
‘Your poor eye,’ she cried.
Paramedics arrived and whisked me away in an ambo – the pandemic meant I went alone.
At the hospital, I was given painkillers, and a doctor cleaned my eye.
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‘I think your eyeball ruptured.
The whole thing is black,’ he explained.
He said the best thing would be to remove what was left in my eye socket, but I refused, just in case there was any hope…
A few hours later, an eye specialist came in to clean my eye again.
As he gently rubbed some cotton wool over it, he gasped, ‘Your eye is still intact!’
‘Shrapnel from the firework must have flown into your eye.’
‘Amazing,’ I breathed.
Doctors then worked out that the entire top layer of my cornea had been burnt black, making it look like I’d lost my eye.
‘Shrapnel from the firework must have flown into your eye,’ the doctor confirmed.
The next day, I was transferred to an eye hospital 25 minutes away.
There, they agreed that although my cornea had been totally destroyed, the deeper structure of my eyeball was still intact.
They bandaged it up and prescribed eye drops and strong painkillers and discharged me.
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Back at home, I spent the next two weeks in bed, feeling very down.
I wanted to avoid looking in the mirror, so Mum and my dad, Issa, took turns putting in the drops every hour.
‘You’re going to get through this,’ Mum reassured me.
After a fortnight, doctors said my eye was starting to heal, but I needed to keep using the drops.
Life went on and I tried to adjust to seeing with one eye – but it was hard. I could no longer play tennis and baseball like I used to.
That October, three months after the accident, I looked in a mirror for the first time.
Gulping, I didn’t recognise myself. My eye was fully white, a contrast to my brown right one.
Around the same time, Mum found an article about a clinical trial.
‘They’re specifically looking for people with burned eyes,’ she explained.
The treatment was called cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cell (CALEC) transplantation, created to help corneal blindness, where injuries meant that the eye couldn’t heal fully – like mine.
Applying for the trial, I was accepted!
In January 2021, Mum and I flew interstate for the procedure. Firstly, a doctor harvested stem cells from my right eye through a tiny biopsy.
Those cells were then grown into a ‘sheet’ of cells in a lab.
Two weeks after that, I was wheeled into theatre where the sheet was placed on my damaged eye along with a donor cornea.
By using my stem cells, they hoped my body wouldn’t reject the new cornea.
Surgeons then carefully reconstructed my eyelid which had fused to my eyeball.
Waking up eight hours later with a bandage around my eye, I prayed that my vision was back.
‘The op was a success but you’ll need to keep the bandage on for a few days before we can see if your sight has returned,’ the doctor said.
But once discharged and back in the apartment that we were staying in, I couldn’t resist a peek.
Tugging down the bandage, I felt elated as I realised I could see my blue blanket, even though it was blurry.
Waking up every day, I’d pinch myself, overjoyed that I could see out of both eyes again.
In November, I had a second op where surgeons placed more stem cells in my eye to see if it’d improve my vision, which it did.
Four years on from the accident, the vision in my left eye isn’t perfect, but I can see objects and navigate my surroundings – something I couldn’t do after the injury.
While I’ve had to give up my dream of being a pilot, I’ve found a job in travel sales that I love.
In April this year, I even ran a marathon, raising $15,450 for the doctors and hospital who helped me through my recovery.
I’m extremely grateful for the generous person who registered as an eye donor – without them, my world would be very different.
Angels, 52, says:
I’ll never forget the night Nick was injured by a firework.
The noise, the panic, the look on his face. But even in the fear, we found hope.
The procedure Nick’s doctor and her team did was groundbreaking.
I’m so proud of Nick and the strength he shows every day.
