At least 15 visitors at Yuga Labs’ ApeFest, a celebration of the marvels of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, may have experienced serious eye injuries. Bloomberg reports that multiple people attending the NFT event in Hong Kong last weekend say they experienced vision problems, which they suspect stem from the event’s stage lighting. Some of the attendees claim doctors subsequently diagnosed them with photokeratitis (aka “welder’s eye”), caused by exposure to ultraviolet rays.

“Woke up in the middle of the night after ApeFest with so much pain in my eyes that I had to go to the hospital,” the user Crypto June posted on X (via Coin Telegraph). “Doctor told me it was due to the UV from stage lights.” User @docwagmi suspected that the “ape friends” reporting problems appeared to have been “up close with us front stage.”

Meanwhile, Adrian Zduńczyk wrote on X, “To all my friends who suffer now: go get your eyes checked. You’ve likely most literally got your eyes burnt with UV like I did, which requires medications, eye drops, eye protection, antibiotics and specialist care. Don’t ignore this health hazard. Without proper treatment, it may cause long lasting vision impairment and other serious damage.” Zduńczyk wrote that seeking medical attention quickly appears to have spared him long-term damage. “My vision was tested as close to perfect with no serious cornea damage, luckily.”
Yuga Labs briefly addressed the issue on X, saying it’s “aware of the eye-related issues that affected some of the attendees of ApeFest,” while claiming it’s “proactively reaching out to individuals since yesterday to try and find the potential root causes.” The company downplayed the number of people reporting issues, adding, “Based on our estimates, we believe that much less than 1% of those attending and working the event had these symptoms.” The NFT company advised attendees experiencing symptoms to “seek medical attention just in case.”
https://www.engadget.com/bored-ape-nft-event-at-least-15-attendees-reporting-severe-eye-burn-welders-eye-173746237.html

It seems unlikely to me that stage lights would have sufficient UV to cause welding flash.

buffy said:

It seems unlikely to me that stage lights would have sufficient UV to cause welding flash.

Probably wasn’t the stage lights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DlfLthx89E

Link

The cause of the Bored Ape UVC eye burn incident?

a bit over the top with the medical advice. No need for a specialist. I’ve had it. uncomfortable but doesn’t last more than a day or less.

Boris said:

a bit over the top with the medical advice. No need for a specialist. I’ve had it. uncomfortable but doesn’t last more than a day or less.

You aren’t suppposed to get it though.

Boris said:

buffy said:

It seems unlikely to me that stage lights would have sufficient UV to cause welding flash.

Probably wasn’t the stage lights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DlfLthx89E

Link

The cause of the Bored Ape UVC eye burn incident?

Thanks for that very informative video.

roughbarked said:

Boris said:

a bit over the top with the medical advice. No need for a specialist. I’ve had it. uncomfortable but doesn’t last more than a day or less.

You aren’t suppposed to get it though.

it happens when working in an industry that has a few welders working. good practice helps to make it uncommon.

roughbarked said:

Boris said:

buffy said:

It seems unlikely to me that stage lights would have sufficient UV to cause welding flash.

Probably wasn’t the stage lights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DlfLthx89E

Link

The cause of the Bored Ape UVC eye burn incident?

Thanks for that very informative video.

Ha, it’s another Soviet secret weapon, they used to call the CNVIII version Havana¡

On a serious frequency apparently 222 nm is the safe shit.

Boris said:

roughbarked said:

Boris said:

a bit over the top with the medical advice. No need for a specialist. I’ve had it. uncomfortable but doesn’t last more than a day or less.

You aren’t suppposed to get it though.

it happens when working in an industry that has a few welders working. good practice helps to make it uncommon.

Boris said:

roughbarked said:

Boris said:

a bit over the top with the medical advice. No need for a specialist. I’ve had it. uncomfortable but doesn’t last more than a day or less.

You aren’t suppposed to get it though.

it happens when working in an industry that has a few welders working. good practice helps to make it uncommon.

Yes. Every welder is taught about it from the beginning.

SCIENCE said:

Boris said:

roughbarked said:

You aren’t suppposed to get it though.

it happens when working in an industry that has a few welders working. good practice helps to make it uncommon.

He had misalinged vision from the start.

SCIENCE said:

Boris said:

roughbarked said:

You aren’t suppposed to get it though.

it happens when working in an industry that has a few welders working. good practice helps to make it uncommon.

That would be deserved if you strike an arc like that. He has an auto darkening helmet so no need to lift it. Plus they gave him a difficult weld to do.

roughbarked said:

Boris said:

roughbarked said:

You aren’t suppposed to get it though.

it happens when working in an industry that has a few welders working. good practice helps to make it uncommon.

Yes. Every welder is taught about it from the beginning.

it is usually bystanders that get it.

Boris said:

roughbarked said:

Boris said:

it happens when working in an industry that has a few welders working. good practice helps to make it uncommon.

Yes. Every welder is taught about it from the beginning.

it is usually bystanders that get it.

Yes.

buffy said:

It seems unlikely to me that stage lights would have sufficient UV to cause welding flash.

Apparently it was caused by UV-C disinfecting lamps

Boris said:

a bit over the top with the medical advice. No need for a specialist. I’ve had it. uncomfortable but doesn’t last more than a day or less.

It’s the corneal equivalent of sunburn. UV burn to the top layer of skin/cornea. Takes some hours to hit the pain button. Typically 2.00am in the morning and “Who the f threw this bucket of sand into my eyes!”. Then is very uncomfortable until the epithelial layer of the cornea grows back. It’s one of the fastest healing bits of the body (I’ve seen video of it and you can pretty much see the cells moving across to cover the bit that got denuded), but never the less, it does take time. And as far as I can remember it doesn’t scar. I think you have to dig beyond about 2/3 of the middle corneal layer to make a scar happen and a UV burn doesn’t do that.

Hand-washing the new shirts to remove the “new shirts” smell. I’ll iron them on Friday.

buffy said:

It seems unlikely to me that stage lights would have sufficient UV to cause welding flash.

Lasers can do that. It would depend on the power of the laser but lasers are frequently used for stage light shows and can do serious eye damage.

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

It seems unlikely to me that stage lights would have sufficient UV to cause welding flash.

Lasers can do that. It would depend on the power of the laser but lasers are frequently used for stage light shows and can do serious eye damage.

But there were no lasers mentioned in this instance.

I’m only a tad late to the thread d, but I got this on a St John duty in Kweenzland. I wore protective glasses, broadbrim hat, stayed in the shade tent all day, and epic sunscreen reapplied hourly. I went to the next meeting with my face peeling bc they hadn’t believed me when I said sun and me don’t mix. Anyway, back to the eyes. They were itchy and burny and saline didn’t help. Then sudddenly I thought to myself “snow blindness!” having read about it in my vintage children’s books, and extrapolated to hot UV. Not at all pleasant and much as I love winter, it’s put me off the snow.