Girl’s E Glued Shut By Father, Officers Say Emergency Operation Will Let 5-Year-Old Regain Sight After Superglue Attack

A man was arrested Friday on charges of gluing his 5-year-old daughter’s eyes shut after a fight with the girl’s mother.

The girl, Ausia Jamison, was discharged from a hospital Friday night after emergency surgery and was expected to regain her vision in several days.

Gene Jamison, 33, was charged with child abuse, felonious assault, and assault and battery, said Officer Helga Dahm.

Police said Jamison glued his daughter’s eyes shut while the girl slept Thursday and cut off her ponytail after fighting with his wife because she wouldn’t give him money.

The Superglue had completely sealed the girl’s left eye and partially closed her right eye, said Dr. John Roarty, a pediatric ophthalmologist.

The operation at Children’s Hospital of Michigan involved trimming off the girl’s lashes and using a knife to separate the eyelids.

There was no permanent damage to the girl’s eyelids and the eyelashes will grow back, Roarty said. The abrasions to both corneas were expected to heal without problems.

“The surface of the eyes were scratched up pretty badly underneath,” Roarty said. “There was a large amount of glue on both sides.”

An examination of the girl found no other signs of abuse, said hospital spokeswoman Julie Nemeth. It wasn’t immediately known whether Jamison lived with his wife, Rose.

Ausia’s surgery was complicated by a genetic disorder called de Lange Syndrome, that has left her moderately to severely mentally retarded.

She has the syndrome’s characteristic small size, long lashes, a thin eyebrow that connects in the middle, and turned-down mouth.

There are about 300 to 400 children in the United States with de Lange Syndrome, said Dr. Erawati Bawli, the hospital’s director of genetic and metabolic disorders. Many do not live to adulthood.

The disorder prevented Ausia from explaining to doctors how well she could see, Roarty said.

She was discharged from the hospital to her mother with a patch on her left eye. Roarty said she could probably see only blurry figures from her right eye.

Three or four children have been admitted to the hospital because they had accidentally got glue in their eyes, Roarty said.

But he said he had never seen a case where the glue was deliberately put in the child’s eyes by someone else.