- Gory Details
Parasitic Worms Found in a Woman's Eye—First Case of Its Kind
An Oregon woman’s infection marks the first time on record that an eye worm species normally found in cattle has been seen in humans.
Abby Beckley was salmon fishing in Alaska when she felt something in her left eye.
“It felt like when an eyelash is poking you,” she says. But try as she might, the 26-year-old couldn’t find a hair—or anything else—in her eye. The feeling wouldn’t go away, and after about five days, Beckley was frustrated.
“So one morning, I woke up and I was like, If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to get whatever the heck is in my eye out of there,” Beckley says. She screwed up her courage, pulled back her eyelid, pinched the inflamed skin underneath, and gave it a yank.
When she looked down, she says, “there was a worm on my finger.”
Beckley is now the first
