A fishing accident led to surgery, a retinal detachment and toxicity tests after a 9cm sinker lodged in the eye of a man in his 40s.

He presented to ED after the lead sinker had propelled directly into his right eye, 15 hours earlier on a fishing trip, doctors from Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital in China report. 

Examination revealed a lead bar inserted into the orbit through the conjunctiva near the lacrimal mound, with vision reduced to light perception along with pupil distortion, ptosis and restricted ocular motility.

“X-rays, preferred over CT due to metallic artefacts, revealed the sinker in the inferior orbital fissure with an intact eyeball,” the doctors wrote in BMJ Case Reports.