She gouged out her own eyes, now she wants to help keep people away from drugs

Mike Ellis | Anderson (S.C.) Independent-Mail

ANDERSON, S.C. — Her piercing green eyes, which sometimes looked blue, are gone, but Kaylee Muthart is getting better.

She even did a cartwheel Thursday.

Muthart, who gouged out her own eyes near an Anderson church while high on methamphetamine on Feb. 6, wants to use her life to keep other people off drugs, her mother Katy Tompkins said.

"She wants to tell people, 'Don't go near it (meth),'" Tompkins said.

Muthart is still in a hospital recovering. She's not yet ready to fully talk about her ordeal but has shared her message with her mother and urged her to reach others, Tompkins said.

"She's just so full of hope," Tompkins said.

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The 20-year-old has had to deal with the trauma of hurting herself and going blind as well as withdrawal from the drug. And her brother Jeremy was in the hospital at the same time, with life-threatening injuries from an auto accident a day after his sister's trauma.

Muthart had left home about two years ago to live with a boyfriend and had been living on the streets for six months. She was using methamphetamine, her mother said

"She never wanted to be in that life anyway," Tompkins said.

Tompkins said tests on her daughter after the tragedy showed methamphetamine in her system, but the tests were inconclusive about any other substance.

Tompkins said she nearly had her daughter committed involuntarily the weekend before the tragedy.

"She was saying the world is evil," Tompkins said.

A few days later, it was Tompkins' 56th birthday, and there was no phone call from her daughter.

"I was a day too late," she said. "I could feel she was fighting it, but wasn't winning."

The day after Tompkins' birthday was when the tragedy happened. Tompkins, who has seven children, said it's something she never expected.

"You never imagine that one of your children will be homeless and be on meth, that never entered my mind," she said. "But Kaylee is strong. Something so tragic could help other people who are going down the path. This is what's in Kaylee's heart: She can't see, but she wants to help people. It's her amazing spirit."

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