A Tooth for an Eye

Martin Jones gave his eyeteeth to see again. No, really.

Jones, who has been blind since an accident 12 years ago, had one of his upper canine teeth — aka his eyeteeth — implanted in his eye socket in a novel eight-hour surgery that turned the tooth into a lens holder.

Jones, 42, of Yorkshire, England, lost his left eye and was totally blinded in the right when a tub of white hot aluminum exploded in his face at the scrapyard where he worked. He also suffered burns on 37 percent of his body.

“My eye looks like something out of a sci-fi movie,” Jones told the U.K.’s The Mirror. “My friends are amazed at it.”

Surgeons had first tried to save Jones’ sight by using stem cells from a donor, but with no luck.

Thanks to the tooth-for-an-eye procedure — performed by surgeon Christopher Liu in Brighton, England — Jones has seen his wife for the first time. He met and married Gill, 50, while he was blind.

"The first person I wanted to see was her,” he told the Mirror. “The doctors took the bandages off and then I saw this figure and it was her. She's wonderful. It was unbelievable to see her for the first time."