Boy Lost Eyesight after Playing with Laser Pointer

The Iceland Radiation Safety Authority reported on May 29 about an extremely serious eye injury caused by a laser pointer. A 13 years old boy has been seriously injured on both eyes playing with a laser pointer. Eye doctors treated that the boy was hurt by powerful laser beam and lost “mid-sight” on one eye.

There is never such kind of serious eye injury caused by laser pointer before this incident in hospital. Alongside those formal applications when a low powered red or green laser pointer is used as a playing tool for pet cats or dogs, a laser pointer should be no longer toys. Parents should encourage children lower than 16 years old to keep distance with laser pointers. Anybody who is in process of such kind of optical gadget, should be responsible all the time.

Usually Class II and Class IIA lasers with an output power of less than 5mW are totally legal and safe to use. Laser pointers that are more powerful than 5mW are always considered powerful. There should be never an illegal operation of powerful laser without unauthorized use of laser more than 5mW.

The advancement of laser diode technology has caused more and more laser pointers with high output power and more available wavelength. A low powered green laser pointer can easily be seen in daylight and regarded as an idea gadget for giving lectures, speeches in school or conference, astronomy star pointing and research, and formal lab experiments etc.