An 18-month old boy from England lost his eye after he was hit in the face with a drone being controlled by a family friend, according to The Independent.

Oscar Webb's eyeball was cut in half by the drone's propeller after Simon Evans, the man who was flying the remote-controlled device, lost control of the drone.

The toddler's eye was removed, and he will have to undergo a series of surgeries and operations before he can be fitted with a prosthetic one.

The freak accident, which took place seven weeks ago in Worcestershire's Stourport-on-Severn, was the first drone-related injury that the young boy's surgeon had seen, but she added that "given their popularity and common use" it was "inevitable" that there would be more.

"It was up for about 60 seconds. As I brought it back down to land it just clipped the tree and span round," said Evans, according to BBC News. "The next thing I know I've just heard my friend shriek and say 'Oh God no' and I turned around and just saw blood and his baby on the floor crying."

The toddler's mother Amy Roberts said that she was with the boy on the way to the hospital in Birmingham when he opened his eyes.

"What I saw, I can still see it now, and what I saw or what I thought I saw was the bottom half of his eye and it's the worst thing I've ever seen," she said.

"I just hoped and prayed all the way there that what I saw wasn't true and wasn't real."

United Kingdom's Civil Aviation Authority has issued guidelines on safely flying drones and unmanned aircraft and will hold a public consultation before publishing a government strategy next year.