Man accused of pouring hot sauce in child’s eyes

Now, I do see some point in hot sauce as punishment/training but that’s more along the lines of nail biting or making sure your dog doesn’t eat your shoes. This guy is lucky that the “eye for an eye” law isn’t in place, otherwise I’m sure we’d have some great recommendations on the sauce to use…

Man accused of pouring hot sauce in child’s eyes
BY TIM POTTER
The Wichita Eagle

The Wichita/Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Child Unit is investigating an allegation that a man put Tabasco sauce in a 5-year-old boy’s eyes.

The boy is OK but has been placed in protective custody while the allegation is investigated, police Lt. T.K. Bridges said Monday.

Bridges, head of the child abuse unit, said he has never dealt with a similar case. “It’s a new one on me.”

The incident allegedly occurred Friday; the boy’s mother contacted police Sunday, Bridges said.

Authorities also took into protective custody an 11-year-old and an infant from the home where the 5-year-old boy was living.

The 22-year-old man accused of putting Tabasco sauce in the boy’s eyes has not been arrested, Bridges said Monday afternoon. The man was living in the same home as the children, but is not a relative of the boy’s.

The case has been assigned to a detective, “and we’ll see where this takes us,” Bridges said.

He declined to give the address of where the incident allegedly occurred. A brief police report indicated it was reported to police with the West Patrol Bureau.

Although hot sauce would not likely cause prolonged eye damage, said Robin Agpoon, a Wichita optometrist, it would trigger severe pain by causing an intense burning sensation in the cornea — the clear front surface of the eye.

“You’ve got some of the most concentrated nerve endings in the body in the cornea, and that’s why it would hurt so bad,” she said.

And it would take only a minuscule amount of hot sauce to irritate an eye, said Allan Eisenbaum, a Wichita ophthalmologist who specializes in treating children.

Eisenbaum, who has been practicing since 1979, said he doesn’t remember ever handling a patient subjected to such abuse.