South Carolina woman seen outside church gouging out her eyes with her own hands, police say

South Main Chapel and Mercy Center in Anderson County, S.C., where a woman was found by authorities holding human eyeballs in her hand. (Google View)

A South Carolina woman terrified churchgoers this week after investigators said she was seen across the street from a church gouging her eyes out with her own hands.

The woman survived, and was recovering at a nearby hospital.

The Anderson County Sheriff’s Office and EMS responded to the scene after dispatchers received a call on Tuesday that a woman was holding a human eyeball in her hand across from the South Main Chapel and Mercy Center, Fox Carolina reported.

Officials said the injury was self-inflicted.

“It took two or three of our guys and two EMTs” to subdue her enough that she could start receiving medical assistance, Sheriff Chad McBride said.

Despite initial reports that she gouged out just one eye, Lt. Bowland from the Anderson County Sheriff’s office said both eyes were removed, WYFF reported.

The unidentified woman remains in stable condition on a respirator in the intensive care unit at Greenville Memorial.

The woman had appeared at church services before but was not a “regular,” witness Elizabeth Hiott said.

Anderson County, in the northwestern part of the state, is a two-hour drive from Columbia.