Deer’s Antler Pierces the Eye of Wappingers Man, Blinding Him

Hunter Matthew Dzierzanowski never expected to be attacked by a deer he shot over 30 years ago.

A conductor for the Metro North railroad, Dzierzanowski was spending the day off in his Wappingers Falls garage with his young daughter when tragedy struck. A huge mounted deer head that the conductor kept as a trophy was knocked from its perch, crashing down on top of him. As the deer head fell, one of its sharp, pointy antlers punctured Dzierzanowski's eyeball, leaving him in excruciating pain.

According to the Wappingers Falls man, the antler sliced right through his eyeball. He told the New York Daily News, "It was like I cracked an egg that had red in it.”

Luckily, the trophy missed Dzierzanowski's one-year-old daughter. But, because she was just a toddler, the child was unable to go get help. That meant that the blinded man had to crawl his way back into the house to find his wife to call for medical attention. After being transported to a Poughkeepsie hospital, Dzierzanowski was moved to Westchester Medical Center.

The Wappingers man suffered an "open globe rupture." And yes, it was just as Dzierzanowski described. The eye was ripped open like an egg, and the gooey inside had leaked out. After a seven-hour surgery, the eyeball was stitched back together, but that was just the beginning of his treatment.

Eventually, Dzierzanowski was sent to Mount Sinai where he went through another five-hour surgery to receive a cornea transplant. Now, just a year later, he's back at work with 20/25 vision. The Metro-North conductor was lucky. Just a millimeter in a different direction and the antler would have caused irreparable damage.