Three Nelson locals injure eyes on Corona bottle caps in three weeks

  • 03/04/2018

Three people in Nelson have been injured by Corona bottle caps popping into their eye sockets within a three-week period, it's been revealed.

A new report, published in the Emergency Medicine Australasia Journal, says each member of the trio all had to take time off work - and some experienced eye paralysis, requiring steroid treatment.

All three had "the same story of opening a Corona beer bottle and receiving the pressed metal cap straight into the eye," Nelson Marlborough District Health Board's Department of Ophthalmology says in the journal.

The eyes of a victim of a Corona bottle cap.
The eyes of a victim of a Corona bottle cap. Photo credit: Supplied / Nelson DHB

"According to our patients, Corona is well known to produce a satisfying 'pop' on opening, often sending the compressed metal cap flying into the air, which has attracted many different styles of opening the bottle."

It says all of the patients were performing "non-standard opening styles on Corona bottles", though it does not detail what these methods were.

It does note the bottle has a "compressed metal cap with a sharp corrugated edge".

"Nowhere on the Corona bottle is there any warning of the risk of ocular trauma."

The Nelson DHB suspects if it had three cases in three weeks, "there is likely multiple similar cases occurring throughout the country".

"It is likely that further cases will continue to occur without the bottle cap design changing.

"Other publications internationally have also called for explicit warnings on bottles stating that opening a bottle without a proper bottle opener may cause serious eye injury and loss of sight."

Newshub.