Corine Remande, 49, and her husband Raphael, who also attended the event on Sept. 28,spoke toTodayabout losing vision in her right eye and her potential plans to sue the organization that runs the tournament.
“When the ball hit my eye, all my eye exploded,” Remade recalled in an interview the morning show aired Friday. “And immediately my sight is finished for me. My first question is how to live now with only one eye?”
Raphael, who had to explain the extent of the damage to his wife, said through tears, “It was a difficult time for sure. It’s still difficult. The doctor told me she has very big damage in her eye, and she will never recover the sight. But she was stronger than me at this time for sure.”
TheTodayreport indicated that doctors told the couple that Remande could’ve died if the ball had taken a slightly different path.
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Remande clarified that she doesn’t blame Koepka, 28, who hit the errant ball. “From the player, there is no fault,” she said. “I’m just angry about the organization and all the marshals.”
Remande said she plans to take legal action against tournament organizers because she believes officials could have done a better job to warn spectators about the danger.
“She insists marshals on the ground did not verbally alert spectators to the danger of Koepka’s shot, and there wasn’t adequate signage to warn about the risks of errant balls around the course,” theTodayreport said. “She also claims that officials did not follow up about her condition while she was in the hospital.”
Organizers for the Ryder Cup did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment, but a spokesperson previously refuted her allegation to the AFP, saying, “We can confirm that ‘fore’ was shouted several times but also appreciate how hard it can be to know when and where every ball is struck if you are in the crowd.”
Officials also emphasized toTodaythat they offered her help immediately.
“I don’t want to change all the rules in golf,” Remande continued. “I just want to improve the safety rules.”
Remande shared exactly what happened to her with the AFPearlier this week. She and Raphael had jetted from Egypt to France to attend the golf tournament. After Koepka’s shot came barreling toward her at the sixth hole on Friday, Remande suffered from a fractured eye socket and a damaged eyeball — what was described to the AFP as an “explosion of the eyeball.”
“Doctors told me I had lost the use of that eye,” Remande told AFP, according toCNN. “It happened so fast, I didn’t feel any pain when I was hit. I didn’t feel like the ball had struck my eye and then I felt the blood start to pour.”
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She said she’s motivated to take legal action because “quite clearly, there is responsibility on the part of the organizers… Officials did not shout any warning as the player’s ball went into the crowd… More than anything I want them to take care of all the medical bills to make sure there is no risk of infection.”
“She was bleeding pretty good,” Koepka said on Friday, according toGolf.com. “It looked like it hit her right in the eye, so hopefully there’s no, you know, loss of vision or anything like that.”
According toESPN, Koepka, who reportedly apologized and gave her a signed glove, also said, “You don’t want to hit anybody in the face, especially not a woman, and it’s not a good feeling.”
source: people.com
