A woman is facing permanent damage to her sight after she mistook a bottle of toxic nail glue for eyedrops.
Paula Griffin, 29, squirted the hazardous liquid into her right eye by mistake after waking up with blurred vision.
Her eye was glued shut for eight hours and was only pried open again when doctors cut off her lashes.
Miss Griffin was warned she could have lost her sight forever and is still waiting to be told if there is any lasting damage.
The accident happened when she woke up and reached for a bottle of eyedrops in a bathroom cupboard.
But in her confused state she grabbed an identical-sized bottle of nail glue that was next to it.
The glue is used by beauty professionals to fix false nails and carries a toxic symbol and a warning that it bonds skin within seconds.
Paula, from Bournemouth, Dorset, said: "I was still really tired and I couldn't see very well, so I stumbled into the bathroom and picked the bottle off the shelf.
"As soon as I squeezed it, I knew something was wrong.
"I managed to stop it hitting the centre of the eye, and doctors told me later that it saved me from permanent damage.
"It was agonising. It was burning so much it was my natural instinct to shut my eye.
"But as soon as I did, my eyelashes stuck fast together and I couldn't open my eye again."
Miss Griffin, who also runs her own fancy dress business, said: "I would hate people to think I'm just some dumb blonde, because I'm not.
"It was a nasty accident, and it could have happened to anyone but I won't be putting the bottles anywhere near each other again, that's for sure."
Dr Simon Bell, consultant in emergency medicine at Poole Hospital, said: "As long as the glue remains on the outside of the eye, the injury will be extremely painful but will only have superficial or cosmetic damage."
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