An American basketball player has described the horrific moment his eyeball popped out of his socket and dangled against his cheek in the middle of a game.

Akil Mitchell, who plays for the New Zealand breakers, was in Auckland for an Australian NBL game when the incident occurred on Thursday night.

Mitchell, who actually scored a basket in the process, fell to the floor holding his hands to his left eye after the finger of an opposing player accidentally dislodged his eyeball from the socket.

He was taken immediately to hospital and feared that he would lose his sight – and his career – after feeling the eyeball against the side of his face.

"With the palm of my hand I felt my eyeball on the side of my face," he told New Zealand's Radio Sport.

"I could still see out of the eye."

"I remember thinking oh man... this is kinda bad, but I actually felt it kind of out of place and that's when I kind of freaked out a little bit.

"Once I got in the ambulance they gave me a little pain medicine and some saline drops in my eye and I felt it slide back into place, which is also a really strange feeling.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

"It felt so good to be able to blink again, which is insane."

After being released from hospital on Thursday, he posted on Twitter that he was “seeing fine”.