That’s how long two Oregon men say they looked at a partial solar eclipse with their naked eyes 55 years ago before it burned their retinas, causing permanent blindness.
“Nothing has changed,” 70-year-old Lou Tomososki told NBC’s “Today” show of the damage he sustained. “It doesn’t get any worse or better.”
Tomososki said he was walking home from high school in Bend, Oregon, with his friend, Roger Duvall, in 1962 when they both looked up at the sun, each with one eye.
Both men are now warning people who plan to watch Monday’s eclipse to make sure they do so with proper safety protections.
Watching a solar eclipse with the naked eye can burn retinas, doctors warn. (Photo: teekid via Getty Images)
“We both got burned at the same time,” Tomososki told “Today.” “He got the left eye and I got the right eye.”
“We didn’t know right that second that we damaged our eyes,” Duvall, also 70, told The Washington Post. “At that time, we thought we were invincible, as most teenagers do.”
Tomososki said they had been warned to use a pinhole projector box to look at the eclipse safely. Because they didn’t, he said, he now has a little blind spot in the center of his right eye.
Lou Tomososki, 70, said he suffered permanent eye damage from looking at a partial solar eclipse without any protection. (Photo: Inside Edition)
Doctors warn that even when the sun is entirely covered, its rays can still damage your eyes.
“When you partially obscure the sun with the moon, it’s not so bright, and it’s not so painful to actually look at it,” Dr. G. Baker Hubbard of the Emory Eye Center in Atlanta told Fox 5. “But, even though it’s not painful, those harmful rays are still getting in your eyes and focused right onto the center of your retina, and that’s where it does the damage.”
This illustration shows the doughnut-shaped asteroid belt situated between the planets Mars and Jupiter.
Asteroids In Space
Artist rendering of asteroids in space
Asteroid Vesta
Image captured by NASAs Dawn spacecraft in 2012.
Vesta Close-up
Close-up of Vesta photographed by NASAs Dawn spacecraft. Scientists believe the asteroid may contain water ice.
Asteroid Itokawa
The near-Earth asteroid Itokawa. The boulder-free, smooth areas are filled with small, uniformly-sized particles.
Another Angle of Itokawa
Itokawa asteroid photographed by Japans Hayabusa spacecraft.
Itokawa (3)
A third image of asteroid Itokawa photographed by Japans Hayabusa spacecraft in 2005.
Asteroid Ceres (1)
The largest object in the asteroid belt is the circular shaped Ceres. Since 2015, NASA's Dawn spacecraft has orbited and photographed the nearly 600-mile-wide dwarf planet, including its numerous brightly lit areas, like the two bright lights of the crater called Occator.
Ceres (2)
Ceres Occator crater -- photographed by the Dawn spacecraft -- is 57 miles across and 25 miles deep and includes very bright surface areas that scientists suggest may be caused by volcanic activity, icy origins or salt deposits.
Earth, Moon, Ceres Size Comparison
A comparison of the size differences between Earth, the moon and asteroid Ceres.
Asteroid Lutetia (1)
Image of asteroid Lutetia captured by European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft on July 10, 2010.
Lutetia (2)
Asteroid Lutetia close-up view as captured by Europe's Rosetta spacecraft in July 2010.
The Halloween Asteroid
Individual radar images of the Halloween asteroid, 2015 TB145, photographed Oct. 31, 2015, by NASA's DSS-14 antenna in Goldstone, California, and the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia.
Asteroid Gaspra
Over 600 craters larger than 100 meters in diameter are seen in this image of the irregularly shaped Gaspra asteroid, photographed by the Galileo spacecraft on Oct. 29, 1991.
Asteroid Mathilde
Asteroid Mathilde was photographed on June 27, 1997, by NASA's NEAR -- Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous -- spacecraft, 2,400 km away from the asteroid.
Asteroid Eros
Close-up image of Eros photographed by NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft in 2000.
Asteroid Steins
The 5-km-wide asteroid, Steins, photographed at 800 km. Scientists don't know how the asteroid survived the impact that left a 15-km crater.
Asteroid 2017 BQ6
This 11-image composite of asteroid 2017 BQ6 was created by radar data from NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar in California's Mojave Desert, Feb. 5, 2017, just five hours before the space rock's closest approach to Earth.
Near-Earth Asteroid 2005 YU55
Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55, a potentially dangerous item, was photographed by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico on April 19, 2010, about 1 million miles from Earth.
Asteroid Ida 243 and Small Moon Dactyl
The Galileo spacecraft snapped this image of asteroid 243 Ida and its small moon Dactyl.
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Jake Mintz & Jordan Shusterman discuss the Padres-Marlins trade that sent Luis Arraez to San Diego, as well as recap all the action from this weekend in baseball and send birthday wishes to hall-of-famer Willie Mays.
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With free agency and the draft behind us, what 32 teams look like today will likely be what they look like Week 1 and beyond for the 2024 season. Matt Harmon and Scott Pianowski reveal the post-draft fantasy power rankings. The duo break down the rankings in six tiers: Elite offensive ecosystems, teams on the cusp of being complete mixed bag ecosystems, offensive ecosystems with something to prove, offenses that could go either way, and offenses that are best to stay away from in fantasy.
