An 18-year-old Fullerton woman was forced to put her life plans on hold after being severely injured by fireworks and fears she may never see again in her left eye.
“I still can’t see anything. I can’t see very well and it’s pitch black,” said teenager Taylor Kim.
She said she was celebrating the Fourth of July with her family in Los Angeles County when someone set off fireworks next to her.
“It was like someone lit a firework,” she said. “All of a sudden I turned around and the firework exploded. It happened so quickly.”
Taylor, who graduated from high school a month ago, wears glasses to hide the stitches in his left eye.
18-year-old Taylor Kim had planned to become a nurse. But after a tragic injury, she wasn’t sure where her life was headed. KCAL News
“If this hadn’t happened, I had planned to finish my internship and volunteer work at Kaiser and then enroll at Biola University this fall to pursue a career as a nurse,” she said. “After this happened, we’re not sure if we want to continue on that path and we may have to choose a different path.”
The Kims are now focused on Taylor’s vision and upcoming surgeries, as well as how to pay for what may be a lifetime of medical care. The trauma doctor who treated Taylor after the accident told the family there’s no guarantee her vision will ever return to normal.
“The doctors couldn’t guarantee that my daughter would be able to see again,” her mother, Jane Kim, said. “They said she needed to be monitored and have further surgery because there was so much trauma and damage to her eye.”
Her parents don’t want to talk about who is responsible for her injuries and want to focus on raising money to pay the bills while she’s off work.
“I never imagined anything like this could happen,” said his father, Robert Kim. “One event can change your life.”
Taylor’s next surgery is scheduled for a few weeks, and her family is hopeful that doctors will be able to restore her eye and her vision.
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