Christy Carlson Romano Risks Blindness After Birdshot Lodged Near Eye

Christy Carlson Romano, known for her roles on Disney Channel's "Even Stevens" and "Kim Possible," is facing a persistent risk of blindness following a clay pigeon shooting accident in 2025. Birdshot from the incident remains lodged near her eye, approximately one millimeter from critical structures.

Romano recounted the event, which occurred in Texas while celebrating her husband Brendan Rooney's birthday. "I was peppered with birdshot at about 250 feet away, and I was struck in a fat pocket under my eye, and also in my forehead," she told Fox News Digital. "I still have birdshot behind my eye about a millimeter away from anything critical. And if it were to move, I would go blind. So we're hoping that doesn't happen."

The former child star described the moment as one where she thought she was going to die. "And when you have children, you can't help but start to see the world completely differently after an accident like that," she added.

Romano's memoir, "Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Fall and Rise of a Child Star," details the accident and her subsequent recovery. Her oculoplastic surgeon, Dr. Sean Paul, explained that the birdshot entered beneath her eye and lodged in the bone, narrowly missing her eyeball, optic nerve, and eye muscles. Romano also sustained a subconjunctival hemorrhage, or bleeding beneath the membrane covering the white of her eye, but the birdshot did not penetrate the eyeball itself. Doctors determined that removing the fragments would be too risky, leaving them in place.

She described the incident as a "miraculous" recovery, expressing gratitude for the medical staff at St. David's South Austin Medical Center in Austin, Texas. Romano emphasized the life-altering impact of the event, stating, "The biggest lesson that I took away from that experience was that life is short, and you need to be really attuned to what it is that you want out of life."

Romano's reflections on the shooting and its aftermath are intertwined with her broader experiences, including a cancer scare in February 2026, prompted by a family history of the disease. These health concerns, coupled with the shooting incident, have influenced her perspective on life and her desire to connect with others through her writing. "I really believe that if the book could help people feel a little less alone, that it would have been worth all of my vulnerability and all of my sharing," she said.