Fishing is a dangerous sport, and not just for the fish.
The Star Tribune reported that eye injuries from fishing have reeled past basketball injuries to become the number one sports-related eye injury in the U.S., according to the U.S. Eye Injury Registry at the Birmingham-based Helen Keller Foundation.
Ralph Squire, a student at Tuskegee University, told the Tribune about the day he will never forget.
"I had just bought the lure ... and right off the bat I threw it up in a bush," he remembers of the incident last May. "I kept pulling on it with the fishing line, trying to pull it loose from the bush."
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The lure did eventually come loose from the bush, only to embed itself in Squire's right eyeball.
Squire has undergone three surgeries, and can now see light, colors and movement through his eye. "It's about like looking through an empty Gatorade bottle," Squire told the Tribune.
Anglers like Squire make up about 9 percent of all sports eye injuries. That is more than racquet sports or basketball.
Squire's injury, a hook to the eye, makes up about 38 percent of those fishing injuries, while the body of a lure striking the eye makes up another 44 percent of those injuries.
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