Graham Cox suffered chemical burns in his eyes after accidentally spraying petrol into his face. Photo / news.com.au
Graham Cox suffered chemical burns in his eyes after accidentally spraying petrol into his face. Photo / news.com.au
A Canberra man has suffered chemical burns in his eyes after accidentally spraying petrol into his face during a routine stop at a service station.
Graham Cox, 35, stopped for petrol about 3.30pm on Tuesday and went to fill up a five-litre jerry can when the petrol hit the bottomof the can and spurted back on to his face.
“As per the instructions, the jerry can was placed on the floor, I was at arm’s length,” Cox told news.com.au.
“I squeezed the nozzle, the pressure must have rebounded back on to my face. It was horrible, it was in both eyes.”
As soon as the petrol hit his face, Cox tried to use his T-shirt to wipe the fuel off but still struggled to see.
He then searched for running water to clean out his eyes and although there were taps near the pumps, none of them had handles. “So I used a paper towel,” he recalled.
But what alarmed him most was the response from service station staff, as his requests for help seemed to go unheeded.
He stumbled into the petrol station asking for a working tap but it seemed the attendant didn’t have a strong grasp of the English language.
“I asked the attendant, he didn’t understand what a tap was, he didn’t understand,” Cox said.
“He didn’t comprehend the severity of the situation. My eyes are burning, he looked at me dumbfoundedly.”
The service station employee apparently thought Cox was talking and gesticulating frantically because he wanted to pay for the small amount of petrol he had spilled over himself.
“He had no idea, he brought up the bill, I just tapped my card and rushed out.”
Cox paid $10.46 for the mishap.
He then drove the 15 minutes home with significantly diminished vision, saying, “I couldn’t see my phone, I couldn’t see writing, everything was very blurred, you couldn’t call or message anyone, you just couldn’t see.”
After jumping in the shower when he got home, the burning feeling hadn’t subsided, so he headed to the emergency ward.
Upon arriving at the hospital and explaining his situation, he was rushed through to get urgent treatment on both his eyes.
“My pH levels in my eyes were out of whack,” Cox explained.
Medical staff linked him up to a drip that flushed the toxic chemicals out of his eyes.
A drip helped to flush out Graham Cox's eyes so he shouldn't have any permanent damage. Photo / news.com.au
He said the doctor’s report stated he had chemical burns to the eyes.
When speaking to news.com.au, there was still a burning feeling in his eyes. The doctor gave him eyedrops to relieve the sensation.
Luckily, the accident shouldn’t lead to permanent damage.
But Cox was unimpressed with the response he received from EG Australia, which owns the service station.
He wrote a complaint and a customer service representative asked him for a receipt of his transaction, which he said was the last thing on his mind at the time.
