How Welding made me blind

I don’t remember what I was trying to make, but it was a welding workshop and I was trying to weld. All engineering colleges have mandatory workshops such as welding, carpentry etc during the first year and so did mine. It was the second semester of my under graduation. I was wearing glasses which were supposed to shield me from the welding radiation. My group which consisted of fifteen students, all of whom had to build the same object, was struggling. While wearing the glasses and manoeuvring the welding machine for four hours, I realised what hell would feel like. The final product didn't resemble the expectation but I didn't care and ran out of the workshop thanking god for saving my life. But I was naive then. I started developing slight pain and irritation in my eyes around evening and I thought it must be normal post welding syndromes. By the time I went to bed, the pain had increased exponentially. I could not sleep and was unable to open my eyes. It felt as if 100 pins were poked into my eyes at once. The pain was unbearable. I walked to a friends room in utter darkness of my shut eyes. Water rolled down my cheeks. She called an ambulance and brought me down the stairs. The ambulance took us to AIIMS hospital and the doctor in the emergency ward checked my eyes. Some pain killers and eye drops brought relief to my sore eyes.