Teen Left Permanently Blind In One Eye After Stabbed With A Pen

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Most parents expect their kids to be safe and healthy while they are at school. Teachers and other school staff work do their best to ensure the best safety they can for their children, however a schoolyard incident left one UK boy with a devastating permanent injury.

15-year-old Haydn Smith was playing football at his school when another boy came toward him with a pen, and stabbed him in the eye.

The boy rushed to a specialist hospital and operated on as doctors desperately tried to save his eye, but Haydn will now have to live with blindness in one eye as his retina was left permanently damaged.

Kent Police confirmed the incident involving Haydn Smith is being routinely investigated and inquiries are ongoing, however, Haydn has been negatively affected by the incident. The 15-year-old tells his mother Michelle “why me? What have I done?” as he tries to adjust to life with one working eye.

Michelle says that Haydn, who has learning difficulties, was the subject of bullying from a group of boys.

After he was stabbed in the eye by someone at the school, he was left in agony as doctors operated to save his eyesight.

Michelle and the rest of Haydn’s family were visiting him twice a week in London, but after three weeks, doctors said there was nothing they could do to save his vision.

“His eye was bleeding from inside and he couldn’t open it. The whole of his eye was black… At first we didn’t realise Haydn had gone blind. We were travelling from Kent to London to visit the hospital twice a week. Then after three weeks we were told there was nothing they could do. A CT scan revealed the pen had gone through the eye and damaged the retina.”

Haydan had dreams of becoming a carpenter or a lorry driver, however with those aspirations now ruined, Michelle says the attack has left him suffering from a crisis of confidence too, with the teenager being less than “a shadow of his former self”.

“He is not good. He isn’t even a shadow of his former self. He has no confidence. He won’t leave the house and has panic attacks. Little things we take for granted like crossing the road have become a lot harder…  He has been emotionally and physically affected by this. He had dreams of being a carpenter but the school have taken him off of the course because of health and safety. Other dreams included being a long distance lorry driver, but we don’t know if that will happen now because of his sight.”

Haydn’s headmaster Carl Roberts issued a statement saying that staff have been “working hard” to help Haydn and his family at this difficult time.

In the meantime, Michelle has removed Hadyn from school, and he’s set to repeat Year 10 in September due to the incident.