Hannah was enjoying her wedding preparations, when tragedy struck…
My mum smiled as she flicked through my childhood photos.
‘Your eyes are so blue in this one,’ she gushed.
‘That pic would be perfect for the wedding!’ I replied.
I was getting married in a few months and I’d gone back to Mum’s to find some snaps for a slide show I was playing during the ceremony.
Photos selected, I popped in the car to drive back to be with my fiancé James.
As I settled into the driver’s seat, I put my sunglasses on to protect against the sun’s glare.
They were my absolute favourite pair, with tortoiseshell, cat-eye frames.
In fact, I loved the stylish shades so much, that
I’d ended up buying three pairs after breaking the first and losing the second!
Only, five minutes away from home, a car pulled out right in front of me.
I slammed on the brakes, but
it was already too late, and I crashed into the rear bumper.
My airbag inflated, knocking me unconscious.
I came to with excruciating pain all through the right side of my head.
The car was filled with smoke and my face was dripping
with blood.
When I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror, what I saw was horrifying.
My right eyelid was hanging off. Beneath that, all I could see was blood.
A few moments later, a stranger was at my car window, opening the door and asking if I was OK.
‘Call my mum!’ I begged frantically. ‘Tell her to let James know what’s happened.’
The passerby also rang for an ambulance.
By then, I was vomiting every few minutes, the pain in my head worsening each time.
The paramedics arrived and lifted me on to a stretcher.
That was when James’ car pulled up and he rushed over to me, his face white with fear.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I kept repeating.
‘You’re sorry?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for,’
Thankfully, paramedics told me the other driver hadn’t been injured in the accident.
James followed in his car as the ambulance took me to hospital.
‘Am I going to lose my eye?’ I asked the paramedic who was attending to me.
‘Your eyelid is cut, but you’ll be OK,’ he told me. ‘We’ll give you some medication for the pain
and nausea.’
'Your sunglasses shattered'
But at hospital, they rushed
me in for tests and examinations, shining bright lights into my
right eye.
A few hours later, James came into my room looking serious.
‘The doctors have just told me you lost your eye,’ he said, gently.
I was in so much pain, I could hardly focus on what he’d said.
‘It is what it is,’ I replied. ‘I just need them to stop it hurting.’
Reaching out, I took his hand.
‘If you don’t want to stay with me after this, I’d understand,’ I told him.
‘Of course I do, Hannah,’ he replied.
That night, they wheeled me in for the first of many operations.
When I woke up, my doctor had some news.
‘Your sunglasses shattered into your eye,’ he said, ‘There are bits of lens lodged in the socket.’
‘My sunglasses?’ I repeated.
I hadn’t even thought about them.
Over the next few days, doctors worked to remove the glass and completely rebuild my shattered eye socket.
After two days in hospital, I was allowed home.
Friends and family gathered round, offering comfort and support.
I didn’t want to postpone the wedding and there was plenty of planning left to do, as well as attending my bridal shower.
But I was struggling to come to terms with what had happened.
In a practical sense, I discovered that I’d completely lost my depth-perception.
Something as simple as walking downstairs or pouring a glass of water had suddenly become a challenge to overcome.
Driving was difficult visually, but I had also become afraid of getting behind the wheel.
In fact, I was struggling emotionally in general.
I’d always been told my eyes were one of my best features, and now I worried that I was no longer beautiful.
‘Are you sure you still love me like this?’ I asked James, tearfully.
‘I’m in this for the long run,’ he said. ‘I’m not leaving you.’
Many nights, he’d lie with me while I cried and listened to Folklore by Taylor Swift on repeat.
With his help, I began to regain my confidence.
And I found another source of support online in a Facebook group for people who had lost
an eye.
It meant a lot to me to speak with people who knew how it felt.
It turned out that my story wasn’t so uncommon.
Many of the people I spoke to had lost an eye when their sunglasses had shattered in car accidents, or after being struck by a flying rock or ball.
After surgery, my eye socket had been packed and sewn shut. But two months after the accident — and just before my wedding — they finally took the packing out.
For the first time, I could see how it really looked.
Opening my eyelid and finding no piercing blue staring back at me was heartbreaking.
Instead, there was just the clear plastic ‘conformer’ doctors had fitted to keep my eye socket in shape.
Since the accident, I’d been wearing an eye-patch. It was hot and itchy, but initially it had helped me feel less self-conscious.
But now that my wedding was in a week or two, I made a decision.
‘I’m not going to wear the patch at
the ceremony,’ I told my mum.
‘Are you sure?’
she asked.
‘I don’t want to hide any more,’ I said. ‘I want people to see.’
And with my hair and make-up done, I walked down the aisle feeling more confident than I had since the injury.
About a year after the accident, my eye consultant recommended I get shatterproof sunglasses to protect my remaining eye.
But when I had a look online, all the polycarbonate glasses were practical, work-wear designs.
‘Surely there’s a market for stylish, shatterproof sunglasses,’ I said to James. ‘Am I crazy?’
'Are you sure you still love me?'
‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘If people knew about the danger, there’d be a huge demand.’
Researching online,
I discovered that while kids’ sunglasses had to be shatterproof by law, almost every adult brand used glass or nylon.
I’d received an insurance payout of £60k, and now I knew what to spend it on.
That’s when I founded Blue Eyes Sunglasses.
My marketing degree and sales background came in handy as I started looking for suppliers.
I went for classic designs. A black metal pair, a tortoiseshell pair, and some cat-eye frames that looked a little like my old favourites.
Each pair was named after a doctor or a hospital that had looked after me following my accident.
When we had a prototype of the glasses ready, I tested them out by smashing them with a sledgehammer!
I had to be 100 per cent sure they were safe.
Now, it’s been three years since the car accident and
the business is going from strength to strength.
My friends and family tell me I’ve really flourished. When I first lost my eye, I kept asking why it had happened to me.
How am I going to live with this? I’d think.
But now I’m making a positive change in the world.
I feel it happened for a reason.
Hannah Oliver, 29
Photos: Autumn and Jendry / Angi & Co