A lifeguard was left blinded and forced to quit her job after a common contact lens mistake caused parasites to burrow into her cornea and damage her eye.
Maureen Cronin, 53, had been teaching private swimming lessons to a group of children in their private pools in June 2024 while wearing her lenses, something she’d done countless times before without issue.
However, the trainer soon began feeling excruciating pain and claimed that ‘she had a piece of sand’ stuck in her right eye.
As the pain continued to become unbearable, Cronin decided to visit a local doctor who prescribed her eye drops.
The lifeguard continued to seek out experts for her worsening situation but reportedly kept being misdiagnosed and was prescribed more medication.
It was only when Cronin visited a specialist a month later that she was diagnosed with acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) – a parasitic eye infection.
Maureen Cronin, 53, a former communications executive, was left blinded and forced to quit her job after she wore contact lenses in water
She recounted: ‘I was giving lessons to kids in backyard pools. I would teach them how to not be afraid to put their face in the water and because you have to be able to get to a child quickly, you have to be able to go under water.
‘I had my contacts in and I would take my goggles off and show them how to go underwater and how fun it was. My eye started to bother me pretty quickly.’
‘Within two weeks I went to an eye doctor and said I was having problems and they said it was a cornea laceration and I had a crack on my cornea and they gave me some drops to take.’
Acanthamoeba keratitis is an infection caused by an amoeba – a single-celled organism that is found in freshwater, saltwater, soil and man-made water systems such as pools.
Wearing lenses while swimming, using a hot tub, or shower may entrap the amoeba between the lens and cornea. The parasite can then enter the eye through a scratch or abrasion in the cornea.
It starts by affecting the outermost layer of your cornea and as it worsens, the infection extends deeper.
She said: ‘I had my contacts in and I would take my goggles off and show them how to go underwater and how fun it was. My eye started to bother me pretty quickly’
After her life-changing diagnosis, Cronin was hospitalized at Stony Brook University Hospital in New York on August 7 for 48 days before undergoing a cornea transplant in September 2024.
The cornea is the clear, dome-shaped front layer of the eye that covers the iris and pupil.
During a transplant, the damaged part of the cornea is replaced with healthy donor’s cornea using tiny stiches.
Her eye rejected the transplant.
She is now almost completely blind in her right eye and waiting to undergo a second cornea transplant to restore some of her vision.
Disturbing pictures show her once light blue eye now cloudy and with an enlarged pupil caused by the infection.
Cronin said of her diagnosis: ‘I’m blind now in this eye with everything so it is very upsetting, it’s isolating.
‘I don’t want to meet any new people, it gives me anxiety and I worry about what people think when they see my eye. I now have a fear of being near any kind of water. I shower with my goggles on.’
After undergoing her first transplant surgery on September 23, Cronin revealed that doctors also found ‘high levels of parasitic activity’ in her cornea that had to be immediately removed.
As a result, she is now almost completely blind in her right eye and is waiting to undergo a second cornea transplant to restore some of her vision
Cronin has worn contact lenses for nearly 20 years and claims she was never told to not wear them in the pool
Cronin claims to have worn contact lenses for nearly 20 years and was never told not to wear them in the pool.
She is now raising awareness about her AK diagnosis in a bid to warn others about wearing lenses around water.
‘I am hopeful but fearful at the same time [about the next cornea transplant]. I’m afraid it won’t take. It feels like it’s never ending and I’m nervous.
‘AK is not well known and it is often misdiagnosed. I would say anyone who wears contact lenses shouldn’t wear them near any body of water. Don’t even wear them when it rains.’
