An electrician’s eyes after a 14,000 volt electric shock?

Claim:

A viral image authentically shows an electrician’s eyes after he was accidentally shocked with 14,000 volts of electricity.

Rating:

A shocking image was job on under pressure. The message caption reads:

An electrician’s eyes after being zapped by 14,000 volts of electricity. His shoulder touched a live wire and the current flowed through his entire body, including the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain. The effect was two strange star-shaped electrical burns in his eyes.

The image is authentic. He was born to a scientist article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on January 23, 2014. It was authored by Dr. Bobby S. Korn and Dr. Don O. Kikkawa, both ophthalmologists and professors at the University of California, San Diego. Korn treated the patient whose eyes were in the image. The article summary reads:

A 42-year-old electrician presented to the eye clinic with diminished vision 4 weeks after a 14,000 V electrical burn to the left shoulder. His vision in both eyes was limited to the perception of hand movements, with an intraocular pressure of 14 mm Hg in each eye.

The authors wrote that after four months, the patient underwent cataract extraction and implantation of a special lens, which resulted in some visual improvement. Two years after the operation, the electrician suffered a detached retina in his left eye, which was operated on to repair it. Korn told Live Science that at a follow-up visit after 10 years, the patient could only count fingers with his left eye. He was able to read using low-light aids and use public transportation independently, even though he was legally blind.

“The optic nerve is similar to any wire that carries electricity,” Korn said. “In this case, the extreme current and voltage running through this important natural wire caused damage to the optic nerve itself.”

Korn was referring to the optic nerve that was damaged by the impact to the man’s left shoulder, as described in the NEJM article. The information contained in post X is corroborated by the NEJM article. The viral image appears to match exactly, albeit cropped, the one published in this article. The cropped version was featured in the Live Science article, where User X likely found the image.

For these reasons, we have rated this statement as “True”.