Mom of 20-Year-Old Daughter Who Gouged out Her Own Eyes Speaks Out

The mother of a young woman who was found outside of a church gouging out her own eyes is speaking out and warning others about the dangers of drugs and addiction.

On Feb. 6, 20-year-old Kaylee Muthart was discovered by local residents in Anderson, South Carolina outside of a church using her own hands to gouge out her eyes while in a drug-induced hallucination, PEOPLE reports. It took a team of deputies to subdue her and render aid before she was flown to the trauma unit at Greenville Memorial Hospital, where doctors delivered the news to her mother, Katy Tompkins, that Muthart was completely blind.

“That was a struggle, I can’t even explain that feeling when I found out, it was horrifying. Complete terror. I was thankful she was alive, but I knew something was wrong with her,” Tompkins said.

Doctors believe that Muthart, who was battling a methamphetamine addiction, used meth that was laced with another chemical, causing her to have hallucinations that the world was “upside down” and hearing voices telling her to “sacrifice her eyes.”

“The day before it happened, which was my birthday, I was getting ready to have her committed, just to get her off the streets and away from it. But I was too late,” Tompkins said, adding that Muthart had decided just days before the incident that she’d enter rehab the following week.

“This is something you never think is going to happen to you, but it did,” Tompkins said.

Now, Tompkins says that her daughter is hoping to tell her story once she is released from the hospital to warn others about the perils of addiction.

“I don’t know how I’m getting through it, but she has given me strength. It’s weird to say, but she uplifts me right now and she’s the one that can’t see. That’s just the kind of person she is,” Tompkins said. “I’m thankful. It’s a horrible thing, but I’m still thankful because God spared her life.”

Tompkins has created a GoFundMe page to help raise enough money for a seeing-eye dog.