Senator Harry Reid reveals he's permanently blind in right eye

For years, Dr. Krawitz has warned his patients about the dangers of ricochet injuries when items on stretch break or become unhinged. The classic example is bungee cords, in which a taught elastic rope is fixed at both ends with a metal hook. People who strap down luggage with bungee cords make the mistake of drawing the cord toward them to fix it in place. The problem is if the opposite end of the cord becomes unhinged, the potential energy stored up from stretching results in the cord returning right back to its owner - sometimes resulting in high-speed, devastating injury to the eye. "Whenever using a bungee cord, always draw it sideways, never toward you, so that a ricochet injury does not occur if the cord fails," says Dr. Krawitz. A blinding eye injury occurred to Senator Harry Reid from a similar but unusual way. On New Year's Day, Reid was exercising with a large resistance band at his home outside of Las Vegas when it snapped. He crashed into his bathroom cabinets, breaking multiple bones around his eye and in his rib cage. The damage to his eye was severe, with bleeding on the inside of the eye and presumed retinal damage. Multiple surgeries have taken place to try to restore his vision, but have not worked so far.*