A 24-year-old model from Canada received eye tattoo on her right eye from a tattoo artist with fake credentials, [Courtesy of Catt Gallinger / Facebook ]
Catt Gallinger is a 24-year-old model from Ottawa, Canada. She loved body arts and modification. Gallinger proudly flaunts her tattoos in the photo shoots.
However, one decision to trust a fraudulent tattoo artist named Eric Brown cost Gallinger her eyesight. She let Brown who was her boyfriend at the time talk her into believing his credentials in sclera staining, a body modification technique that injects ink to the white parts of eyes.
Catt Gallinger's favorite color is purple. [Courtesy of Catt Gallinger / Facebook ]
Gallinger wanted to stain her eyes to her favorite color: purple. She finally went to get one of her eye tattooed by Brown. On the day of the procedure, everything went wrong and purple ink started to ooze out of her eye and trickled down her face.
The pain came the next day. The injection site was infected and her tattooed eye was swollen shut. Three weeks after the procedure, Gallinger learned from the doctors that she was at risk of going permanently blind in the affected eye. She could barely open her eye due to severe swelling and pain.
Gallinger began speaking out on her Facebook page about what happened to her. She tried to bring awareness to sclera procedure and fraudulent tattoo artists with fake credentials. She urged her readers to talk to people who actually got a procedure done by each artist before choosing the right one for yourself.
She has been posting updates on her recovery journey. Initially, the doctors who examined her told her that she may lose her vision if she did not get her affected eye treated immediately.
She started getting treatments from specialists and the pain was subdued. However, Gallinger was told that her eye sustained permanent damage and she would soon have to choose whether to remove the affected eye or to live with blurry vision and purple eye.
Four weeks after the sclera procedure, Gallinger still suffers from pain and impaired vision. The undiluted excess ink is still trapped in the eye. Gallinger will eventually have to choose between eye removal or living with the mangled eye with impaired sight. [Courtesy of Catt Gallinger / Facebook ]
Gallinger later learned from her doctors that the needle used in the procedure was bigger than the typical size of needles that used for sclera, and the ink was not diluted with saline. They also suggested that the equipment used for the procedure "was not sterile" as "infection stuck in with the excess ink."
In a video posted on her Facebook, visibly emotional Gallinger shared her progress and she repeatedly said, "Don't risk it. Don't risk it. Don't risk it." She added, "I took my eyesight for granted and trusted someone I shouldn't have."
Gallinger who used to model professionally announced on her Facebook that she will no longer be modeling. [Courtesy of Catt Gallinger / Facebook ]
Distraught Gallinger posted on her Facebook that she no longer will be modeling ever again because she doesn't see herself "ever being comfortable enough to do another shoot and can barely look at" herself.
Kwak, Min Jung = abiel@ajunews.com
reporter
KwakMin-jung
abiel@ajunews.com
