Im studying to become an RN & have many questions. A co-worker of mine was telling me of an experience she just had. While she was spending time with one of her acquaintences, she purposely closed her eyes completely at one point as she was facing him & talking to him and then all of a sudden he licked her eye while it was shut. So basically he licked her eye lid (skin) & her eyelashes The licking happened in one second and it was over. Then, she immedietly blinked the eye open (as a reflex) and then re-shut it. She then wiped off the saliva with her fingers. It wasnt a chunk of saliva (eg: hawk & spit on the ground), and it wasnt in a form of a spitball. It was a thin layer of saliva just like if you licked the tip of your finger. The eye lids function is to protect the eye from foreign objects, such as falling rain and sometimes when people talk and spit shoots into the eye, the human eye naturally blinks as a reflex in order to keep the foreign object away. My question is, in this case, since the saliva was not in a form of spit balls and because it was not shot directly into an open eye, would the eyelids still help keep the saliva out of the eye once it was opened/before she wiped? or would the blinking make it worse and just bring any saliva INTO the eye. Also, she does not know if this person was HIV positive. She was just wondering how much HIV risk is involved, if any.