The injuries sustained from a puck to the face over two weeks ago have left Nashville and Team USA GM David Poile without vision in his right eye.
“I’m not trying to be a hero or anything else,” Poile said, per the Nashville Post. “This is not a good situation. It is difficult but I have to – and want to – move on. … There’s different adjustments that [I’m] going to have to make but there’s lots of people that have lost an eye and they’re operating very well and I have to be one of them.”
Here’s Polie’s first public interview since suffering a fractured nose and orbital bone at the Xcel Energy Center on Feb. 6:
“The eye was opened up. I needed stitches in the eye,” Poile said. “There’s obviously damage in there that I’ve probably heard but haven’t totally listened to as they gave me the details. All I know is that there is substantial damage such that I don’t have any sight today and they’re holding out hope that something might change as the eye heals and improves.”
Poile was struck by deflected Shea Weber pass during the Predators’ morning skate at Xcel Energy Center on Feb. 6, resulting in a fractured orbital bone and nose. He underwent a pair of surgeries in Minnesota — which ruled out traveling to Sochi — and has subsequently undergone a third procedure (eye-related) to allow for further evaluation of his injury.
“I sort of knew at the beginning – I got hit and it kind of felt wrong,” he explained. “When I was in Minneapolis they did the operations and said, ‘We’re going to have to send you to Nashville to a specialist.’
“You knew that there was something and, of course, I’ve never been able to see out of it since then.”
