23-yr-old hit on eye

Theu00a0next time you scramble to book your leg space on the footboard of a train, you would do well to remember the fate of Dheeraj Patel. Like any other day, the 23-year-old boarded a train from Borivli to report to work on Sunday. Patel was standing at the footboard to alight at Vile Parle station when he was hit in the right eye with a stone, reducing his vision to nearly nil. Just 10 days into his new job as a porter at the domestic airport, Patel is now recuperating at the civic-run KEM hospital.


Pic/Rane Ashish

"Once the train crossed Andheri, I went to the door and something hit me in the eye and blood started oozing out," Patel said. "The person standing next to me also got hurt; his spectacles broke. After we got down, the railway police took us to the Cooper Hospital."

Patel suffered a corneal tear with globe perforation in his right eye. On Tuesday, doctors at KEM hospital, where he was shifted Sunday, performed a surgery. "We have stitched the tear. It will take a week for his wound to healu00a0 and after that we can perform intra-ocular lens implantation which will allow him to regain near normal vision," said Dr Arjun Ahuja, head of opthalmology. Senior PI T N Shinde, GRP, Andheri, said, "We have registered a complaint against an unidentified person under section 152 of the Indian Railway Act, 1989."