ANDERSON, SC — The mother of a 20-year-old woman who gouged her eyes out earlier this month while standing outside of a South Carolina church is speaking out against illegal drug use after the horrifying incident that left churchgoers in shock and her daughter completely blind.

According to reports, Kaylee Muthart was standing across the street from the South Main Chapel and Recovery Center in Anderson on Feb. 6 when she began gouging out her eyes with her hands. PEOPLE Magazine reports that Muthart had been hallucinating on meth, seeing visions of evil things, and hearing voices that she had to “sacrifice her eyes” in order to make it to Heaven.

Church members who came to help Muthart, realizing that she had pulled her eyes out of their sockets, called 911. The incident traumatized those who witnessed it.

When first responders arrived, Muthart was combative, and several people had to hold her down.

“It took two or three of our guys and two EMTs, I believe, to kind of subdue her enough for them to start rendering aid,” Sheriff Chad McBride recalled to Fox Carolina.

Muthart was transported to Greenville Memorial Hospital, but it was too late. Her distraught mother, Katy Tompkins, arrived at the hospital to learn that her daughter was now completely blind, and all they could do was clean out the sockets to prevent infection.

Muthart was hospitalized for two weeks, and now her mother is speaking out as she wants others to be aware of the dangers of illegal drugs.

“Just from this experience, don’t go near them, ever,” Tompkins exhorted. “Do your best to stay away, far away, because they will do your best to take you and destroy your life.”

Muthart became addicted to methamphetamine six months ago as she was unknowingly using marijuana laced with meth while living in various places and on the streets, WLTX-TV reports. Her family urged her to get help, and the week before the incident, Muthart advised that she would be entering rehab.

“The day before it happened, which was my birthday, I was getting ready to have her committed, just to get her off the streets and away from it,” Tompkins outlined to PEOPLE. “But I was too late.”

She said that her daughter is now going to have prosthetic eyes, and Muthart made her promise that she would select prosthetics that match the green eyes she had before the incident. Tompkins is also raising money for her daughter to obtain a service dog.

She states that her daughter still remembers the images she was seeing while on meth, and has been trying to process what she has been through.

“She is trying so hard to get her thoughts back together, but unfortunately when she was under the influence of methamphetamine, pure evil, she saw things she cannot unsee. They are still in her memories,” Tompkins wrote in a recent update on her GoFundMe page. “She doesn’t want them to be, but she is trying her best to work through it.”

“Thankfully, as time progresses, with much support and her therapy, we can help her to understand that things that she was seeing and thinking at that time, were not true or real,” she explained. “She told me she was trying to read the Bible to get through it, but in doing that, the evil drug showed her lies. She is wanting to do Bible study with her family and I will be reaching out to others to help her clear up the confusion!”

Tompkins says that she wants her daughter’s story to be known so that others will be aware of the dangers of addiction.

“Kaylee and our family hope and pray that someone somewhere has been helped by our tragedy. That is what Kaylee wants,” she wrote. “God has given Kaylee a mission and a testimony to tell for His glory!”

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