The Time I Poked My Eye Out

Our third grade girl scout camping trip got off to an inauspicious start when we realized that it started on Friday the 13th. We spent the whole ride up to the camp ground nervously whispering about the ominous date, vaguely convinced that we were all going to die as a result of our troop leader's blatant disregard for the laws of nature. Our chaperons' attempts to quell our fears were somewhat dampened by the fact that it started downpouring as soon as we arrived at the cabin, officially quashing our plans to make a campfire, roast s'mores, and do other soothing, girl scout-ly activities.

Resigned to staying inside the cabin, we stood in a circle and listlessly kicked a ball around as the adults sat in the kitchen and strategized about the weather. I have never been coordinated in my life, which combined with the wet floor and small ball resulted in me pulling a Charlie Brown-esque mis-kick, except somehow I wound up falling flat on my face instead of on my back. I was mortified to have fallen so comically in front of my peers, and even more so when I saw my broken glasses on the floor and knew I would have to wear them taped-together for the rest of the weekend. I tried to pick myself up as nonchalantly as possible, as if I had meant to face plant on the floor, only to find the ring of girls all staring wordlessly at my head. Finally, one of them broke the silence and said, "why is their ketchup on your face?"

Ketchup on my face was even more embarrassing than nose-diving on the floor and having broken glasses, so I got defensive and retorted "I don't eat ketchup!" (which was true, but not really relevant to whether or not I could have landed in a puddle of it). But all the girls just kept staring and nodding, "yes, you have ketchup on your face, a lot of ketchup." I reached up to touch my face and investigate, and pulled my hand away to find it was indeed covered in red liquid, but I recognized it for what it was: blood. I was bleeding from a gash my broken glasses had cut above my right eye, and while it didn't hurt (yet) I knew enough to know that it would, so I started to cry as a clutched at my wound.

At this point all the other girls realized the ketchup/blood mix-up and started to yell for an adult. The troop leader looked over to see me sitting on the floor, crying and cupping my hand around my eye socket with blood streaming through my fingers. She let out a shriek and screamed "Oh my God, Caroline poked her eye out!"

At this point complete chaos broke loose. The rest of the girls started hysterically screaming and running around, while the troop leader called 911 and I began sobbing uncontrollably and rocking back and forth, distraught at the knowledge that I would be blind for the rest of my life. Never mind that I could feel my right eye was still in my head, and that I could still see fine out of my left eye; an adult had said that I poked my eye out so it must be true.

In my memory this pandemonium lasted for a long stretch of time, but it probably went on for less than a minute before one of the calmer moms came over and gently pulled my hand away from my face to inspect the damage. Realizing that my eye was still firmly ensocketed and that the copious amounts of blood were just a result of the fact that head injuries bleed a lot, she got the troop leader to cancel the 911 call and started rounding up and calming down the rest of the girls. Still, it was decided that I needed to be returned home, given my broken glasses, blood-soaked clothing, and general patheticness.

Someone called my parents, who drove up to get me. My father the doctor inspected the injury and decided that, while not eye-gouging, it did require stitches, and we would have to go to the hospital. The stitches actually ended up being the most traumatic part of the whole experience - I remember being held down as a terrifying doctor made his way towards my eye with a giant pointy needle, and then having hideous black stitches on my face for the next week at school. Fortunately the damage was mostly contained to my eyebrow region, so once the stitches came out and the surrounding hair grew back there was no visible reminder of my klutziness. But if I were to shave my right eyebrow for some reason, I would have a pretty wicked scar.

Epilogue: The rest of the trip ended up being equally disastrous, with another girl falling off the cabin porch and spraining her ankle, and one of the moms accidentally backing into a tree and then breaking off her passenger side mirror as she attempted to get out of the campsite. The moral of the story is don't go camping on Friday the 13th. Or at least, don't go camping on Friday the 13th with a bunch of superstitious eight-year-old girls.