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Any sports fan will tell you that two championship-winning celebratory mainstays work in conjunction: Bottles are popped, corks fly, alcohol sprays—and goggles protect everyone’s eyes from all of it. We saw the New York Liberty wear them after their big win, and this week, the Los Angeles Dodgers capped off their World Series victory with a shower of something crisp, dry, bubbly, and out of my price range. Which makes us wonder: Is Champagne—and its occasionally explosive opening process—so dangerous that athletes (or yourself) should don fundamentally bulletproof eye-ware when the party starts?
Well, in a word: Yes.
The biggest danger? “The cork’s like a projectile,” says Ann Arthur, MD, an ophthalmologist at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital. “If it flies out, it can cause a lot of injuries that can be somewhat mild, somewhat serious, or it could even change the structure of the eye.”
Which tracks, because according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Champagne corks can pop from bottles at speeds up to 50 miles per hour. “If you have a projectile that’s going at 30 or 40 or 50 miles per hour, it can theoretically shatter the eye,” says Dr. Arthur. Other potential injuries include: corneal abrasion, angle recession glaucoma, cataracts, and fractures around the orbital bone or eye socket. In short, you could lose vision.
And it’s more likely than you’d think: According to a 2005 study, 26% of those injured by Champagne corks remained legally blind. And while Dr. Arthur emphasized that Champagne-related injuries are not something she’s extensively treated, they’re certainly possible.
Major League Baseball has had their fair share of close-calls. In 2018, the cork of current Los Angeles Dodger (then a member of the Boston Red Sox) Mookie Betts errantly fired into a reporter’s neck (she was fine). Six years prior, San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum was blasted in the eye with a cork—he was also fine.
“The biggest thing that we emphasize is prevention because—while these injuries aren’t very common—they can be pretty traumatic,” says Dr. Arthur. When it comes to eye protection, the gold standard are goggles made from polycarbonate that fully wraps around the eyes and cheeks. So, yeah, the goggles are a good idea.
They’ll also save you from irritating your eyes with alcohol—an issue Dr. Arthur recommends treating with a straightforward action. “If you get any sort of chemical in your eye, the first thing you want to do is irrigate it out of your eye,” she says, “even if it means just putting your head under a faucet, you want to rinse it out.”
Now if you’re reading this, you’re probably not at risk of being struck by a professional sports team’s cork, and if you are—can we have tickets? But hopefully you’re still popping some kind of sparkling wine sometime soon because, well, it’s fun. And when you do: Be careful. Or wear goggles.