Victor Fernandez was about cross the road at Bangalore. The green signal for pedestrians was about to end. He was in a hurry to get back to his house after a hectic duty at his office. His idea was to cross that important crossing before red signal would appear. When he crossed half of the road, suddenly he felt a sort of blackness in front of his eyes. It was like a black curtain in front of his eye. He did not know what to do at that moment. He was not able to see anything at that moment. Without knowing what to do he was standing at the half-way mark for long time. Meanwhile signals were getting changed frequently – green, red, purple and then once again green–and so on. He was hearing the noisy sounds of speeding vehicles moving on both his sides. He understood that there was something wrong with his eyes. He was slowly getting used to the circumstance. Likewise he had to spend nearly 20 minutes in the middle of the road. Meanwhile a police constable present at that crossing observed Mr. Fernandez. He did not understand why this fellow was not crossing the road even when he was getting the green signal. He came and enquired Mr. Fernandez. Fernandez explained that he had only one eye which was having good vision and that too the same eye had become suddenly blind. That Police person arranged for an ambulance in which Mr. Fernandez was shifted to nearest eye hospital.
There he was examined in detail and the diagnosis of Retinal Detachment was made. This was the cause for the sudden loss of vision for Mr. Fernandez. This is one of the many causes for sudden loss of vision in one eye.
When one eye, which was alright hitherto, loses vision suddenly, we call this condition – sudden loss of vision. There are many causes for this. When the outer transparent cornea is damaged due to injury one may lose vision. This may happen in cases where the retina loses its light-perceiving capacity due to various reasons. This may also happen in cases where the optic nerve is undergoing several changes. The blood vessels supplying retina may get blocked, the transparent medias like aqueous liquid or vitreous liquid may lose their transparency and cause blindness. Apart from injuries, the causes for sudden loss of vision are:
Retinal Detachment
Narrow angle glaucoma
Acute iridocyclitis
Retinal artery occlusion
Retinal vein thrombosis
Papillitis, infection of the optic nerve
Vitreous hemorrhage