A MAN is recovering after a fishing accident left a 2.5oz lead weight embedded in his face.
Darren Williams, of Acrefair, almost lost his eyesight when the weight shot in through his eye and shattered his cheekbone.
A four-and-a-half-hour operation saw the weight pulled out and his cheekbone rebuilt.
A fellow fisherman said Darren was 'unbelievably lucky' to have kept his eyesight in the one-in-a-million accident.
Darren was fishing at the Llyny Gors lake near Llandegfan, Anglesey, on a Welsh Carp Forum fun day with seven others when the accident happened.
His line is thought to have caught on a tree. He pulled on the line to free the snag, but it snapped back, with the weight hitting him at speed in the face.
It entered his face through his left eye, pushing the eye to the side, and lodged in his cheek.
Darren was conscious when taken the five miles to Ysbyty Gwynedd. He was transferred to Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Bodelwyddan, where he had his operation.
Llyn y Gors worker Adam Bunting, 24, said: 'I was in the shop when I was told someone had a hook through his eye.
'I called the ambulance, and his friends brought him up to the shop. I could see that the lead had gone in - but he was really calm about it; that could have been because of the shock of it.
'You could see the tip of it sticking out. I thought straight away he had lost his eye - the whole eye was really swollen.'
Darren's brother Paul said: 'I was on the opposite side of the lake and didn't see anything.
'I got a phone call saying he needed help. He was sitting down and he had a towel over his eye - but then he took it off and you could see the twizzle hanging out of the corner of his eye.
'It was unbelievable. He has been incredibly, incredibly lucky.'
Surgeons pulled the weight from Darren's eye, removed the eye and placed a metal plate in his eye socket. The eye was then put back in, and Darren was home two days later.
Paul added: 'Looking at him, you can't quite believe what happened. It looks like he has just been in a fight in Wrexham - he's only got a shiner.'
Dave Jones, of Bethesda, who organised the fishing trip and barbecue, said:'He is OK by now, but they have had to rebuild his eye socket - his eyesight is fine.
'He is unbelievably lucky. What happened to him is beyond a joke.
'In the 12 years I have been fishing, I have heard of people getting hurt with hooks and things, but never this. Seeing this really is believing.
'It must have travelled at 100mph towards him. It was a real million-to-one chance this would happen.'
