Mother's desperation to find cure for sick sons leaves them blind

Two Chinese boys have lost their sight after their mother pushed
needles into their brains in an attempt to cure them of an eye
infection. Doctors were left astonished when scans revealed needles
had been pushed into their brains.

An hospital spokesman said: "Maybe their mother thought it was some
way of helping like a weird kind of acupuncture, but it only made
things worse. They are recovering well but they will probably not see
again. We think the keratitis caused the blindness and the needles
might have been an extremely foolish and misguided attempt at
treatment."

The boys, Da and Xia Long, from the town of Xiyangdian, in Henan
province, suffer from keratitis - an eye infection which has led to
them both becoming blind. When they were taken to the hospital however
by their grandfather Shi Kho, 51, doctors were astonished when scans
revealed hypodermic needles had been pushed into their brains.

Surgeons at Zhengzhou Children's Hospital removed the needles in a
series of operations which in total lasted for more than eight hours.

Police in the province are now searching for the boys' mother, who is
believed to have vanished when their grandfather borrowed enough money
to take them to hospital.

"She has gone on the run and now we know why. I thought she was a good
girl but now I'd say she was a psychopath," the boy's grandfather
said.