Some people are tired of their glasses or contacts and instead choose to opt for a laser eye surgery. This operation can often improve a person’s vision and eliminate the need for seeing aids. Yet there are also times that the laser eye surgery can go horribly, devastatingly wrong. According to CBS News, most of these horrible errors could be avoided if the doctors and nurses at the eye clinics were more careful. For every 1 million people that go under the laser for a corrective eye surgery, approximately 69 of them will experience complications.

About 13 percent of all eye surgery complications surface because the assistant injected the wrong eye with anesthesia. When this happens, the patient can feel every painstaking, burning, laser incision that occurs on their eye. This makes it hard for that person to keep from blinking, and can cause serious implications because of the person’s reactions to the pain. 14 percent of all eye laser surgery errors occur when the doctor chooses to operate on the wrong eye. Many times he or she just failed to check the paperwork saying which eye was supposed to be treated. When corrective surgery is performed on an eye that did not need the procedure, it can damage vision. At worst, it will leave you blind in one eye. At best, you will have the same degree of vision as before, and the time and money that you spent on the procedure will be for nothing.

In a recent study, approximately eight patients a year were given the wrong procedure because of a mix-up in paperwork. Many of these victims were given a degree of surgery that was meant for another person. The laser techniques must be performed in a specialized way for each individual who gets the surgery, and if the doctor makes a mistake by mixing up files the results can be devastating. In two cases reported to the Archives of Ophthalmology, the patients had the wrong tissues transplanted. This can cause eye irritation, pain, and a loss of vision. 85 percent of all eye surgery accidents could have been prevented with better safety precautions and protocols. Also, the surgeries could have been more successful if the doctors were more organized with their paperwork and the tools that they were using.

The most common of all eye surgery problems is implanting the wrong lens. This leaves the patient with worse vision than before because the lens is not correct for his or her eyesight level. This normally happens because the doctor fails to check the lens specifications before surgery. The American Academy of Ophthalmology is trying to reduce the amount of eye surgery errors by developing new safety procedures and protocols that eye doctors can adopt. These include the mandatory requirement to verify a patient’s identity and his or her procedure before the surgery and mark the surgical site. Also, the doctors should take a short time out immediately before the incision to make sure that they are working on the right eye with the right tissue and the right lens before they start in.

By double-checking lenses and the eyes that need each lens, doctors can be certain that they are making the right decision when they start in. If you have been harmed in an eye surgery, then you need to contact a medical malpractice lawyer. The point of laser surgery is to improve your vision, not damage. If you paid for a procedure that caused you unexpected pain and did not help to improve you vision in any way, then you should not have to pay for that expense. Talk to a personal injury lawyer or medical malpractice attorney today for more information about how to start your case.