Six people who sat behind former President Donald Trump at a rally in Tuscon, Arizona last week were left with strange eye injuries, including one who says she was nearly blind the day after, according to a report from local station News 4 Tucson.
One of the victims, anti-abortion activist Mayra Rodriguez, told the station her eyes began hurting after leaving the rally last Thursday.
“As soon as we left and we stepped outside my eyes were burning,” she said.
Rodriguez eventually went to the ER for treatment, where staff reportedly told her it looked like she was sprayed with something.
“The emergency room staff, from the triage nurse to the PA [Physicians Assistant] asked are you sure you didn’t get sprayed with something your symptoms look like you got sprayed with something,” she told N4T.
Mayra Rodriguez said she was left unable to open her eyes due to her “horrible” symptoms
News 4 Tucson YouTube
When the news station followed up with her the day after the rally, she reported being nearly blind and said that it “hurts a lot to open my eyes.” Doctors were ultimately unable to determine the cause, but she slowly improved over the following days.
Rodriguez thought it might have been the result of allergies until she learned that five other people in her section reported similar symptoms. Meanwhile, rallygoers who sat on the other side of Trump seemed to be fine, N4T reported.
A brother and sister who also experienced symptoms spoke to the news station.
“It kept getting worse and worse, my eyes were watering a lot, my nose started running then I started feeling my face get really flushed and my neck felt like it was on fire and it just progressed from there,” the sister said, while the brother described the pain as “unbearable” and said his eyes “were were red like hell.”
The Trump campaign told the victims and News4 it was investigating the incident. The Secret Service said it was not made aware of the reported injuries but that there was no known threat to the former president at the rally.
