How do you remove leeches from your eyeball?

kernel_kate

Leeches have been known to fall and attach on the eyeballs of hapless hikers. Where I'm from, if a leech attaches itself to you, you just spray it with alcohol and it will shrink and fall off. Obviously spraying alcohol on your eyes is not advisable. I asked a guide how they would remove one in case it happened, and I was told we would either need tweezers or someone with sharp nails, but both seem to have an opportunity for further injury. I...

Originally asked by user19652 on Stack Exchange (outdoors) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

This story says that a saline solution was used and it was not pulled off. Dr Fogg says tweezers were not an option as simply pulling the leech off could leave its head lodged in the eyeball , leading to infection. A check of the medical literature revealed two other suggestions - using an anaesthetic on the eye to put the leech to sleep, or salted water. The woman's husband had made an earlier unsuccessful attempt using salted tap water, before she went to Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital. "We numbed the eyeball so we could have a better look at it... but the leech wasn't apparently affected by it,'' Dr Fogg says. Salt crystals also posed some risk of being "abrasive to the eyeball''...

Full answer by Charlie Brumbaugh: https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/15004 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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