Man used woman’s placenta to re-build his eye and save his sight after acid attack

An acid attack victim’s eye has been saved by a donated placenta.

Paul Laskey, 43, was squirted in the face with what was believed to be battery acid after his 16-year-old son was mugged at knifepoint.

His left eye ‘melted’ away after the attack and his vision was saved by a ‘life-changing’ medical procedure using a donated placenta.

When the plumber and heating engineer went to apprehend his son’s mugger in Newcastle on February 5 2023, he was squirted in the face with a corrosive acid.

Paul told Metro: ‘I couldn’t see and couldn’t breathe. It took my breathe away with how strong it was. I felt burning on my face.

‘I wasn’t in a lot of pain because it had burnt through all the nerves.’

The ‘severe chemical burns’ caused his cornea to melt. His severely restricted vision means he could see ‘shadows’ with his left eye.

Paul added: ‘It was horrendous. I was off work for the first six months. It was all that was on my mind. It was just awful.

‘I immediately worried that I would lose it completely, which would have upended my life.

‘I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to work, drive, play football with or go to the cinema with my kids, like I love to do.’

Paul required ‘rapid’ care and over the course of a year he received two cornea transplants from donated eyes, as well as ‘essential’ treatment from a donated placenta.

From the placenta, doctors used an amnion graft, which comes from the inner lining of the organ.

The ‘sticky’ and almost transparent substance seals itself against the eye, which helped to heal surface damage and cover nerve endings.

The 43-year-old went through went through this procedure three times, including the first a week after the attack, stopping his sight from deteriorating and stabilising the eye.

Paul last received an amniotic membrane transplant in June 2024.

Due to the success of these amnion grafts, doctors are now planning further stem cell treatment to give Paul more sight back in his left eye.

Professor Francisco Figueiredo, Consultant Ophthalmologist at Newcastle Eye Centre, Royal Victoria Infirmary, who treated Paul for his injuries, said: ‘It is safe to say that these grafts have helped to save the vision Paul still has – and allowed us to move towards further treatment to restore his lost sight.’

‘It is incredible to think that this is possible due to the generosity of a mother, donating the organ that she has grown to help grow her child. It really is remarkable.’

Paul, who only found out recently his sight-saving ops were made possible by a placenta, added: ‘I’m so grateful that the amnion graft has helped to keep the sight that I do have and prepare my eye so that hopefully I can get my full range of vision back.

‘I’m so thankful to the mother who chose to donate her placenta to help people like me who are at risk of losing their sight completely.

‘It’s incredible to know that a new life can help so many people in such a profound way, using something that’s usually thrown away.’

The placenta is an organ that forms in the womb and provides oxygen and nutrients to the fetus.

The placenta is often discarded after birth but when donated it can be used to make 50 to 100 amnion grafts, according to NHS Blood and Transplant’s Tissue and Eye Services.

The grafts are used to treat patients for eye injuries, burns, diseases and to help protect the eye in the weeks after a cornea transplant.

NHS Blood and Transplant’s Cord Blood Bank collects donated placentas from mothers giving birth at University College Hospital in London, as well as Luton and Dunstable Hospital in Bedfordshire.

Tissue and Eye Services then make the grafts from the inner lining of the organ.

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