18-month-old Oscar Webb has his eye sliced by a drone propeller. Picture / BBC
18-month-old Oscar Webb has his eye sliced by a drone propeller. Picture / BBC
Warning: This article contains images that readers may find distressing
An 18-month-old boy has been blinded in one eye after he was hit by an out-of-control drone being flown by a family friend.
Oscar Webb and his father Ricky were about to leave Simon Evans's home after a visit when the sound engineer launched the drone in his front garden.
The £300 'quadcopter' device, bought on eBay, had been in the air for little more than a minute when it clipped a tree as Mr Evans, who had experience of flying the remote-controlled device, attempted to land it.
It hit Oscar in the face and one of its blades sliced the toddler's right eye in two.
Mr Webb and his partner Amy Roberts, Oscar's mother, spoke out to warn others of the danger of drones, which were one of last year's most popular Christmas presents for adults and children alike.
Unlike some commercially-sold drones, the propellers of the widely-sold 250 Class model involved in the accident were not housed in protective casings that would have saved Oscar's eyeball.
Miss Roberts, 28, a carer, said: "We had no idea about the damage these things could do and there will be plenty of other people around the country in the same position.
"People need to realise that these are not simple toys, and must only be flown in wide open spaces, never anywhere where they could strike anybody."
Oscar, the youngest of the couple's four children, has had two operations, including one to remove the damaged eye, and will need further procedures before he can be fitted with a made-to-measure prosthetic eye.
Oscar with his mum, Amy Roberts. Picture / BBC
Miss Roberts, of Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, will always remember Oscar holding his eye in the back of the emergency vehicle on their way to hospital in Birmingham.
She added: "What I saw I can still see it now, and it's the worst thing I've ever seen. I just hoped and prayed all the way there that what I saw wasn't true and wasn't real."
Mr Webb said he was about to put Oscar on his tricycle to push him back to their home when he saw the moment of impact.
He added: "As I glanced over at Oscar the drone went straight into his face. He screamed through the shock and so did I."
Picture / BBC
He said the drone was one of four that Mr Evans owned for hobby flying purposes. The couple said Oscar, who can still see with his left eye, has coped well with the ordeal.
"He just seems to have adapted as best he could to the situation," Mr Webb said. "He's getting on with life."
They have accepted that the incident seven weeks ago was a terrible accident and have forgiven Mr Evans.
Oscar's story was featured on BBC1's Watchdog programme this week after his grandmother Anita Roberts, from Bewdley, Worcestershire, wrote in after watching an earlier item about the damage to property that drones can cause.
Eye specialist Faye Mellington, of the Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre at City Hospital, Birmingham, said she and her team "knew straight away the outlook for Oscar's vision long-term was extremely poor".
She added: "I have seen a lot of ocular injuries, but never in someone so young, and I've not seen one from a drone. That said, given their popularity and the common use, it's inevitable that we'll see a lot more."
Mr Evans told Watchdog he had not used a drone since it happened, adding: "I look at the drones in the garage and I feel physically sick."
A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said: "This is the first life-changing injury that we've heard of involving a drone."
The Civil Aviation Authority has guidelines for flying drones safely, which are included in drone packaging. There will be a public consultation on a licensing and registration scheme for drones before a Government strategy is published next year.
Micro-sized drones can be known as hexacopters or quadcopters depending on their shape and design. Some have high definition cameras for aerial photos.
