WATCH: Mother in action call on drones after toddler blinded in one eye

The 18-month-old youngster was struck in the face by an out- of- control drone that was being flown by a family friend.

Oscar's mother Amy Roberts from Stourport-on-Severn took her son to hospital and despite doctors carrying out several emergency operations to try and save his sight, the damage was too catastrophic.

He will need several more operations before having a prosthetic eye fitted.

Mother Amy recalled the horrific moment in the ambulance that Oscar opened his eye and she saw how badly injured he was.

"What I saw, I can still see it now. It's the worst thing I've ever seen," she said.

"I just hoped and prayed all the way there that what I saw wasn't true and wasn't real.

"I can't really even remember what I was thinking at the time. I just remember waiting for someone to come and say it was okay.

"The doctors did say that it was one of the worst eye incidents they'd seen.

"It was hard, I cried that much that even the consultant – it brought tears to her face."

The drone was being flown in the garden by family friend Simon Evans, who had experience of flying remote-controlled devices, when it span out of control and hit the toddler.

He said: "'It was up for about 60 seconds. As I brought it back down to land it just clipped the tree and span round.

"The next thing I know I've just heard my friend shriek and say 'Oh God no' and I turned around and just saw blood and his baby on the floor crying."

Mr Evans has not flown the gadget since the accident and said the sight of one makes him feel 'physically sick.'

He added: "People need to be aware of how dangerous they can be."

Faye Mellington, a consultant in oculoplastics and orbital surgery at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, said she and her team immediately knew the outlook for Oscar's eye was 'extremely poor.'

She said: "I have seen a lot of ocular injuries, that said I've not seen one in someone so young, and I've not seen one from a drone.

"Any instrument that can come close to the eye and within reach of it at high speed can cause devastating injuries. I suppose that given there are so many around now and they in frequent use, we can expect more injuries of this kind."

Oscar, who can see out of his uninjured left eye, is now 'doing well' and continues to be a happy little boy, despite his serious injury.

Miss Roberts said she wanted to warn other people not to treat drones as toys. She appeared on BBC show Watchdog on Thursday night to warn people of the dangers of the devices. You don't realise the dangers, you don't expect something so severe to happen from what people call toys, I wouldn't class them as toys," she said.

The Civil Aviation Authority has released guidelines for flying drones safely and there will be a public consultation before a government strategy is published in 2016.

Oscar's ordeal follows a plumber who was left blind in one eye after steering his own toy helicopter into his face.

Phil Shelgrove lost the sight in his left eye when the blades of his helicopter sliced through his eyeball and slashed his face.

The 26-year-old from Colchester, Essex had been playing with the second-hand toy that he bought from a friend.

He decided to test it out in his front room despite being told it was only to be used outside. But the plumber accidentally hit a series of wrong buttons on the helicopter's remote control and instead of lowering it to land, it bounced off the ceiling and fell into his face, leaving a six-inch gash.