Anderson Cooper was blinded after undergoing an assignment recently. The affects that blinded him were only temporary, however, and he later regained his sight and his health is reportedly back to normal.

However, the incident was still shocking and obviously not recommended for the long term health of the eyes.

The CNN correspondent posted onto his Instagram account recently, "Temporarily blinded last week while on assignment."

The post was accompanied by a a photo showing Cooper with a large white patch over his right eye.

He added, "UV light bouncing off water. Much better now. Details today on #andersonlive."

The reporter later also provided more details as to what had happened. He explained that the incident happened as he was on an assignment for a 60 Minutes segment. He said that he had to spend a number of hours filming in a coastal area of Portugal.

Cooper said, "I wake up in the middle of the night and it feels like my eyes are on fire. It turns out I have sunburned my eyeballs and I go blind. I went blind for 36 hours. I took this picture of me after I went to the hospital. I went to see a doctor."

The CNN man also consulted with NBC's Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who suggested that the problem came due to the sunlight reflecting off the water – the UV rays burning his retinas. This happens in much the same way as how sun can burn skiers when it reflects off of the snow. For that reason skiers wear UV-protection googles.

However, despite the shocking blindness, it was only temporary and he is reportedly all better now. He is now finding the funny side of what happened to him, later suggesting that the bandaged photo of himself would be used for his profile page on dating website Match.com.

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