Eye injuries in a terrorist bombing: Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, June 25, 1996

We report the experience of our institution in the evaluation and care of multiple simultaneous ocular trauma patients after a terrorist bomb attack on a United States military base in Saudi Arabia.

Retrospective, noncomparative small case series.

Three patients who received severe ocular injuries after a terrorist bombing.

All patients underwent surgical repair of the injuries that were inflicted as a result of the terrorist bombing.

Baseline ocular characteristics, intraoperative findings, surgical procedures, and final (3 years after injury) anatomic and visual outcomes were noted.

Glass fragments caused by the blast were the mechanism of all the ocular injuries in these patients. All patients had primary repair of the injuries done in Saudi Arabia and were sent to our institution for tertiary care. Three of the four eyes injured had stable or improved visual acuity and one eye was enucleated. Two patients had no serious injury other than the globe trauma. One patient had extensive eyelid trauma and required serial procedures to allow fitting of a prosthesis.

Blast-injury patients are at risk for open globe injury as a result of glass fragments. The types of injury that can occur from terrorist blasts can be extensive and involve all the tissues of the eye, the ocular adnexa, and the orbit.