Belle Asks:

One of my characters is in a minor plane accident. When you see him next, he is blind. What could cause him to be blind as a result of this accident?

Jordyn Says:

A character can lose vision as a result of this accident in one of two ways. Either direct injury to the eyes themselves or injury to brain centers that are involved in the processing of visual information.

Direct injury to the eye could include the eye itself or bones around the eye could become fractured and impinge on certain nerves that could ultimately lead to blindness. You could also have traumatic retinal detachments that if not repaired could lead to blindness.

Many areas of the brain are involved in processing the information our eyes takes in. Any injury to any one of these centers could lead to blindness even though the eye itself looks perfectly normal. This article gives a basic outline and would probably be a good jumping off point for further research. As mentioned in the piece, some of these conditions would be called “cortical visual impairment, cerebral visual impairment, neurological vision loss, brain-damage-related visual impairment, and vision loss related to traumatic brain injury”.

Best of luck with your story!