“With the hope of restoring my eight-year-old son’s right eye to its full potential”, a Tafuna High School teacher is reaching out to the community for assistance in the fight to restore her son’s full vision.

Pogai Filemu Fa’apouli-Coffin, a mother of three from Pago Pago, is seeking assistance through a website — gofundme.com — to help her son, Amaziah Coffin.

The history teacher on her gofundme.com page said that Amaziah’s life changed on Thanksgiving week, November, 2014 when an incident occurred that almost robbed Amaziah of his eyesight in his right eye forever.

She told Samoa News that on that day, around 1:30 p.m she received a call from her husband, saying that Amaziah’s school had contacted him and said that their son got into a fight with another student at school and injured his eye.

“So, I was told to go and pick him up. Before I left the school to go pick up our son, the school principal called me, and asked me to come and pick up Amaziah. I asked what had happened, and her response was that Amaziah had played roughly against another student and hurt his eye.”

Mrs Coffin said at first, she did not have the slightest idea that it was a serious injury. “When I got to the school it was already past 2:30 p.m. I walked into the office and saw my son sitting at the principal's desk, crying.”

She said the principal approached her and told her the same story and said when they asked Amaziah if he wanted to go to the hospital, he said no, they drove back to her school, she clocked out, got her belongings and locked her classroom.

However, she said on their way back home, Amaziah told her about the incident, which differs from what the principal had told her.

He said the teacher had assigned them math worksheets to complete at probably around 9 a.m. in the morning, and while he was still on task, the teacher had sent him to wash her coffee mug. According to Amaziah he returned to the classroom where he discovered that his pencil was missing from his desk and when he looked for it, another student in his class threw or tossed it back at him. The pencil hit his right eye.”

Mrs. Coffin said, “I was really shocked to hear about this from my son, so I took him straight to the hospital,” where she was told the pencil “caused a puncture in the outer lens of his right eye, leaving a hole in his pupil and causing serious damage to the inside of his eye.”

She explained, “My son was seen by the doctor later that day around 5 p.m., and he was admitted right away. He underwent his first surgery that same day to close the hole in his outer lens.”

Amaziah’s first surgery was a success, however the local ophthalmologist (Dr. Ernest Oo)informed us that our son will be referred off island to see a pediatric ophthalmologist.

She told Samoa News that her husband, Alex Coffin has taken their son to Kapiolani Children's Hospital in Hawai’i where the pediatric ophthalmologist says that Amaziah will undergo further surgery. If that does not work, they will need to insert or replace an artificial lens in his eye, which he will continue to outgrow and therefore it will need to be replaced every 3-4 years.

Mrs. Coffin, who was emotional while sharing her story, said Amaziah had an ultrasound done on Monday this week and the doctor recommended that her son should remain in Hawai’i for follow up appointments and checkups until his wound is completely healed.

She said the ophthalmologist there will also decide on when to perform the second surgery.

“The doctor gave two different options,” she said. “One is to remove the cataract and have our son wear a contact lens, but he will still have blurry vision. Second, the doctor can remove the cataract, but will be unable to replace a lens due to the unhealed wound — and of course our son will still have vision problems.”

Mrs. Coffin has set up a page on gofundme.com seeking financial assistance from the public to allow them to give her son whatever options he has before him, in an effort to restore his sight to its full potential.

The website can be located at gofundme.com under Amaziah’s Eye Surgery Medical Fund. (samoanews.com attempted to place a link to the fundraiser but couldn't find it.  If you have a link, please email it to webmaster@samoanews.com)

Amaziah’s ordeal and his family’s request for public help to meet medical expenses is happening at the same time that 4-month-old Baby Melchizedek (Mel) Soli is currently fighting for his life at the LBJ Medical Center, as family members fundraise to send him to Hawai’i.

Baby Mel’s website for fundraising is: www.gofundme.com/ivfy70, which shows $7,000+ has been raised to as of yesterday morning. Updated information on Baby Mel, can be found on: facebook.com/prayersformel