Jingls, it must have been a huge fad on the continent as well, my French penfriend made me a little thing - don't know what it was - made out of orange and white plastic thread. May still have it somewhere 55 years on!!
I am not sure that the child has lost an eye, iam, I think he has a blood clot in the eye (very unfortunately) and let's hope he is fine in the end.
Accidents will happen; remembering some of the things we played with such as marbles, conkers, stilts, whips and tops, skipping ropes - if they had all been banned because of occasional accidents then we would never have had any fun.