Whiskey Saves!

Alcohol doesn't tend to make you see more clearly, but in Denis Duthie's case a bottle of whisky literally saved his sight.

Mr Duthie, a catering tutor at New Plymouth's Western Institute of Technology, had been celebrating his parents' 50th wedding anniversary in June by having a few vodkas from a bottle his students had given him as a present.

When he walked into a bedroom in his home everything suddenly went black.

"I thought it had got dark and I'd missed out on a bit of time but it was only about half-past-three in the afternoon. I was fumbling around the bedroom for the light switch but ... I'd just gone completely blind."