“I Like to Call It My Skull Lamp” — Man Loses Eye to Cancer, Turns It Into a Flashlight Instead

Brian Stanley (@bsmachinist) lost his eye to cancer. Like many folks who lose an eye, Stanley opted to put in a prosthetic eye. Wearing these have benefits that extend beyond just aesthetics, they can also help facilitate proper facial movement functions.

However, Stanley decided to switch things up a bit with his prosthetic — he turned his eye into a high-powered, fully functioning flashlight with a seriously long battery life.

He posted about his experience, and gave a tech demo of his customized body part in a viral Instagram post.

"I lost my eye to cancer, so I turned my eye into a flashlight. I like to call it my skull lamp," Frank writes in a text overlay of his video, which begins with him looking into the lens of the camera, demonstrating his cranial tech to the camera.

He looks like a Terminator, except instead of a red light emitting from his eye it's a white one and he isn't hell-bent on destroying humanity's savior.

(Or protecting him from a liquid metal menace if we're talking the Terminator 2 terminator.)

After backing away from the camera without turning the light in his eye off, he decides to hit the light switch behind him which shows how his eye functions in total darkness.

A small portion of his face is illuminated by the bright light. However, the the glow from his eye is powerful and bright in the total darkness of the room.

"Here is a demonstration of its capability," he writes in a text overlay of his video. He begins to pan his phone around which allows viewers the chance to see additional usage scenarios for his skull lamp such as how the light operates when viewed from different angles.

Brian assures viewers that the light isn't a hindrance nor is it dangerous for him to use. "It does not get hot. Also, my nose and browline completely shield my eye from the light," he writes, intoning that there aren't any drawbacks to having this piece of tech installed in his head.

The camera lens then backs away from Stanley and he looks away from the camera to demonstrate how much of the room is illuminated when he looks in the direction of the dimly-lit room. His skull lamp appears to work just as well as any powerful flash light, with the added benefit of making him look like a cyborg, and he gets to do so entirely hands-free.

He walks through more of his house showing off the electrical upgrade to his eye as he continues to saturate other areas of his home with light. As it turns out, the specs on his eye-light are probably something you'd want in a portable light you'd buy offline.

He breaks down the specifics of his skull lamp in an additional text overlay in his video: "Battery life: 20 hours of functionality as a flashlight. Power source and all hardware is safely contained within the prosthetic eye."

In case you're wondering just what the heck Brian searched on Google to find a place that sells prosthetic flashlight eyes, just know that you're not going to find any of these on an Amazon Prime shopping list — he made the things himself.

"I engineered and manufactured these myself from solid Titanium billet," he explains in another on-screen caption.

What about longevity? Surely batteries, after a while, degrade. And keeping one inside of your eye for sustained periods can't be a good idea, right?

It seems that Brian knows what he's doing because he's been using the skull lamp for a pretty long time and he hasn't had any issues thus far. "I am now 2 years in with full-time use, it is both comfortable and functional."

As for how he turns the eye both on and off, he covers that in his clip as well: "I have built in a switch. I use it at the beginning and end of this video.

Folks who saw his video had a lot to say about the way it works. One person thought that it was eerily reminiscent of classic horror video games, and it's hard to argue with that logic.

"Literally a horror game flashlight," they penned, probably referencing this gadget from Silent Hill 2.

Another person who wears prosthetics applauded Brian for his creativity and they said that they, too would want to rock something like this on their body.

"This is amazing! I’ve only had natural prosthetics my whole life I couldn’t imagine how fun something like this would be!!"

Someone else thought it was amazing that he took an injury and decided to use this as an opportunity to turn him into a Cyberpunk character: "Amazing! So cool to turn your injury into a blessing that can help a lot of people out."