Don't panic because the red laser pointer is dangerous
If you were exposed in the eye to a direct red laser pointer beam, do not unduly worry. A beam in the eye may cause temporary flashblindness and afterimages. This is not an injury. Instead, this is the eye’s normal response to overly bright light. It is similar to what happens after looking directly into a camera flash. The afterimage area looks like a blob if you looked directly at the light, or can look like separate spots or a line if the eye was moving during the exposure.
Tags
Wavelength
Causes of eye damage caused by laser pointers
Afterimages take about 5 or 10 minutes to fade. If after this time the spots are still visible, you may have retinal damage. Fortunately, this often heals within a few days or weeks. This is similar to how your skin heals after getting a small cut or a bruise. Vision may return completely to normal, or you may have faint spots noticeable only under special conditions such as looking at a uniform white wall or blue sky. An Amsler Grid test can help in finding small lesions within 8-10 degrees of the fovea.
(Technically, afterimages are not injuries since they are caused by saturation of rhodopsin or "bleaching" in the outer segments of photoreceptors that results in a localized reduced sensitivity. An laser pointer 5000mw injury results in a minimally visible lesion which histologically involves the retinal pigmented epithelium and the photoreceptors.)
2022-02-11 10:10:18
Your Answer: