“Fake eyes are made by hand here and painted with great precision, right down to the blood vessels in the whites of the eyes.”

“Fireworks-related injuries are usually complex cases; the injuries are severe,” says Franken. “Often, the eye socket is shattered, the skin is damaged, and you’re dealing with a lot of scar tissue.” Sometimes it takes as many as thirty surgeries before the eye looks presentable again, but generally, there are six to eight weeks between an eye removal and the fitting of a prosthesis.

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