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Please, wear safety glasses

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by The_Monster, May 29, 2012.

  1. The_Monster
    Joined: Sep 8, 2003
    Posts: 1,805

    The_Monster
    Member

    Please take a minute or two to read the following. Its for your own safety.


    Theres no injuries or horror stories to report here in this post. In fact, Ive been lucky enough to never visit a doctor for eye injuries. I dont even personally know anyone that is blind.

    However, I was watching a documentry last night and it covered breifly a mans struggle with mid life blindness and how hard it was to cope with the world around him as he had known it for the last 30+ years.

    If you stop to think of all the things, objects and tasks we do every day... we simply take them for granted. Imagine simple daily things like showering, cooking food, getting dressed, all while being in the dark.

    And yes, you can forget about driving your cars or even working on them for that matter. Forget riding a motorcycle, or bicycle even. Forget even driving a R/C car. Movies, sunsets, car races, welding, wrenching, pinstriping, your girl... just take a moment to think what it truely would be like to loose your eye sight.

    Of course safety glasses cant protect you from everything. Ive had my fair share of sneaky crap still magically make its way into my eyes. Ive had the light shows of welding slag zap around the inside of my helmet. But, theyre a hell of a lot better than wearing nothing at all.

    Im now wearing the biker style glasses with the foam around the edges. I use Fog-X inside the lenses. I wear ear protection whenever grinding or hammering. Thin "Mechanix" style gloves save my hands from annoying cuts that can be avoided. I use a hood and gloves when I weld. The point is, I dont take my safety lightly. I want to drive my car and see the world around me.

    I wanted to take this moment to bring up safety again. Out of our 5 senses, my eye sight is treasured the most, and would impact me the greatest if it was lost.

    If you think youre too cool to wear safety glasses because the dudes on TV dont, think again. Play it smart, do your part in protecting #1.

    Thanks
     
  2. GeezersP15
    Joined: Dec 4, 2011
    Posts: 555

    GeezersP15
    Member
    from N.E. PA

    Thank you for the message. I hope that all who read it give their personal safety serious thought. Yeah, gloves can be a pain, safety glasses can be uncomfortable, and so can hearing protection. Make it a point to wear the protective gear anyway. You'll get accustomed to it, and one day you'll be thankful you did. Great post..Thanks for the reminder.:)
     
  3. Yep, safety glasses are a pain, and can be uncomfortable - but not half as uncomfortable as having the emergency room surgically remove metal from your eyeball, ask me how I know!
     
  4. Don's Hot Rods
    Joined: Oct 7, 2005
    Posts: 8,319

    Don's Hot Rods
    Member
    from florida

    I used to be terrible about wearing goggles or gloves, but a few trips to the emergency ward to have slivvers of metal ground out of my eyeball made me rethink that decision. I hate wearing goggles over my glasses because here in Florida they steam up in about 2 minutes, but I simply take them off until they unfog and then put them right back on again.

    Gloves are another good thing to wear. I have two cuts on my left hand right now from grinding discs kissing my fingers, and I got cut even through gloves. But it would have been worse without them.

    We get smarter as we get older.

    Don
     

  5. 117harv
    Joined: Nov 12, 2009
    Posts: 6,589

    117harv
    Member

    I have had metal drilled out of my eye two times in the last few years, no fun and you are down for two days atleast. I ware safety glasses no matter what i'm doing in the shop. I use cutoff wheels all the time and have had big chunks of them let go, when i cut i keep my head to the side out of the spinning path, and it has saved me several times. A face shield and glasses at the same time is still a better way, i too have had debris sneak in around the glasses. Gloves are a must too.
     
  6. JMel
    Joined: Jun 18, 2011
    Posts: 199

    JMel

    I've had close calls...gotten crap in my eye, but luckily nothing serious. What I don't understand is how i keep losing my damned safety glasses. I must have 15 pair hanging around the shop. They don't ever leave the shop, yet, when I need them, they are gone and nowhere to be found. So, I buy another pair, or two, or three knowing I'm going to lose them, and before i know it, all 3 are gone after one use. Its the damnest thing!!!

    People bitch about their drier eating socks? Well, my shop eats glasses.

    And screw drivers
    Oh...and wrenches
    And don't forget the hammers, it eats hammers too.

    Remember those bolts you put on the counter right next to you to use on whatever you were working on 5 seconds before? Yeah, they are gone too.

    I'm blessed with 20/20 vision - want to keep it that way, so I'll keep buying glasses.
     
  7. hammer bowling
    Joined: Apr 1, 2010
    Posts: 90

    hammer bowling
    Member

    Something else that needs to be brought up should be use a shield for all welding. Tacking by closing your eyes is super harmful. The eyelids are the thinnest skin on the body. All this tacking with no helmet stuff WILL catch up with you. I have been welding, fabricating and machining for over 35 years and have only had something in my eye twice and only one serious flash.
     
  8. BOWTIE BROWN
    Joined: Mar 30, 2010
    Posts: 3,252

    BOWTIE BROWN
    Member

    A friend was weedeating & he took his safety glasses off & talked for awhile (phone) then returned to weed eat without putting his glasses back on . In less the 60 seconds he was blind in one eye. SAFETY FIRST no matter what guys.
    thanxz for the post.
    B.B.
     
  9. JMel
    Joined: Jun 18, 2011
    Posts: 199

    JMel

    I'm bad about gloves...i don't wear them near enough. I get frustrated because I can't "feel" what i'm doing...then i'll hurtmyself, or burn myself, then wish i couldn't "feel" what i was doing at that point.

    Of course, I'm the idiot who repeatedly takes OFF his welding gloves to pick up what he just welded to inspect it.

    I'm smart - S-M-R-T
     
  10. shadams
    Joined: Mar 16, 2011
    Posts: 1,492

    shadams
    Member

    Going through that right now dammit. A piece of snad off a grinding disc bounced off my cheek, then off the safety glasses and right into my eyeball. Cant get it out to save my life. My eye looks just like your avatar. If no improvement tonight off to the eye doc tomorrow....
     
  11. Don's Hot Rods
    Joined: Oct 7, 2005
    Posts: 8,319

    Don's Hot Rods
    Member
    from florida


    I know !!!!!!!!! :confused: We buy gloves by the dozen and goggles 3 or 4 at a time and yet we can never find any when we need them. Where do they go ???:confused: I wish they sold them with a tracking device built in.


    Don
     
  12. My daughter is an eye tech and she sees these kind of accidents sad to say on an almost daily basis.
     
  13. Fortunateson
    Joined: Apr 30, 2012
    Posts: 5,331

    Fortunateson
    Member

    Good Thread! My son is the one who gives me shit when I don't wear the proper safety items. I prefer face shields to glasses as I wear glasses as it is. Tried that "closing eyes" trick once and got welder's flash. Doctor told me he shouldn't give pain meds to teach me a lesson! I saw a NFB film once about an old mechanic in Halifax NS who was blind. Did tune-ups, adjusted timing with the engine running, and then drove around his driveway to check his work. I believed he work for the city. And yes, he WAS blind. However, I don't want to try it.
     
  14. jcmarz
    Joined: Jan 10, 2010
    Posts: 4,631

    jcmarz
    Member
    from Chino, Ca

    My dad always used to tell me to wear safety glasses. He mention it so many times that it stuck in my head and I always wear them whether I am working on my car, cutting wood, or yard work. I wish I had his old pair of safety glasses from his work (Alcoa plant in Vernon,CA). They really had glass lenses.
     
  15. jbrittonjr
    Joined: Sep 10, 2009
    Posts: 105

    jbrittonjr
    Member

    I use 3M goggles over my prescription eyeglasses.
    Like Don writes above, goggles do "fog over" but I hate going to the emergency room more than wiping lenses clear.
     
  16. As a welder/fabricator for over 20 years now, I unfortunetly had to go see the optomtrist last year to have my eye cored clear down to the fiber tissues to get a chunk of metal out of it. I was wearing safety glasses when it happened, and my welding hood, but apparently a chunk of hot slag bounced off the inside of the hood and made its way behind the safety glasses into my eye. After three trips to the surgeons chair for drilling, I have a permanent spot like a rain drop in my vision through my right eye. Annoying yes, but it doesn't affect me other than the fact that I now spend close to $150.00 on a few really nice sets of fully enclosed goggles. Whenever I do any kind of work with metal, wood, mowing, edging, anything where there could be flying debris, I wear safety goggles. It was a real wake up call that safety glasses don't fully get the job done. They make some really nice fully enclosed, breathable safety goggles, similar to the ones the military uses,and I recommend that you spend the money and go buy some. It just takes a second, and everything is black! Safety gear should be higher on the list than the tools you are using it with.
     
  17. I had a sliver of steel in the blue part of my eye for a couple days, years ago. I couldn't see it because of where it was. Ended up at the doctors place and after he tweezer'd it out, he took a mini air powered grinder to get the remaining rust out. Makes going to the dentist no big deal.
     
  18. edweird
    Joined: Jan 4, 2009
    Posts: 3,186

    edweird
    Member

    i've had 7 operations on my left eye because of not wearing safety glasses while beating on a unversal joint in 1987.a piece went through my eye and almost in to my brain. i'm still legally blind in my left eye and deemed disabled because of my stupidity.please, please, please wear safty glasses..................and goggles!
     
  19. the shadow
    Joined: Mar 5, 2005
    Posts: 1,105

    the shadow
    Member

    true story , a good friend of mine o rosetty who owns,builds,restores & races vintage funny cars, was at a local shop icking up some machine work. while there he spotted a large cross vise that had come off of a bridgeport mill. after asking about it the shop owner said he could take it, not being one to ask for help bo picked up the large vise and proceeded to walk to his truck with the vise. he asked a shop worker to drop the tailgate and proceeded to toss the vise into the back of the truck were it landed on a pile of 3" deck screws. well one flipped end over end back at him and laned dead center in one of his eyes. he had to be driven to the hospital with the screw in his eye, he said when he moved his eye up & down the screw would move with the eye! the got it out & he was blind in that eye, he got on a list to get a cornia transplant & later that ear he recieved one from a donor the doctors warned him that the transplant may or manot take/work (50/50 shot), he can now see fine in fact he see's better then he did before! but that mistake cost him alot besides sight he could not drive his funny cars or do machine work in his restoration shop.
    Paul
     
  20. Model T1
    Joined: May 11, 2012
    Posts: 3,309

    Model T1
    Member

    July 1st 2011 was a fairly cool day here in Florida, considering it had been hotter than hell up till then. We'd had a small tornado months earlier. First chance to get off my butt and pick up fallen branches. Wasn't out front in our five acres ten minutes when I decided to move about a 30' branch that was leaning against the large tree it had fallen from. Right off I figured I should get the truck and hook my tow strap on to drag it down. But, it was stuck into the sand. Decided I should lift and move it out of sand. When I did the top part slipped from the tree trunk letting the end I was holding ram me directly in the right eye. My world went dark and I never felt so much pain. I didn't fall. In a bit I could see and blood was running down my face. Staggered to a lawn chair near the garage as my wife came out the back door. She'd seen me staggering across the lawn 200' away.
    Got the bleeding stopped. To stuborn to go to emergency 45 miles away. Wife does not drive and ambulance would take forever here in the boonies. Went in house looked in mirror. swelled shut so I figured it was useless to go to hospital. Eventually pain stopped and swelling went down. Sight seemed to be getting better so drove 1000 miles to visit kids in Illinois. Month later drove 1000 back to Florida. Needed my physical for BP meds. Doc told me to get my butt to ER.
    It was two months later I found out the blow knocked my lens into the eyeball. Had catarac surgury and lens implants but doc said it would have happened with original lens. Happens often with direct blow to eye.
    Many eye doc visits, two lens implants, finally another surgery and donor cornea. Still can only see partially from right eye. Supposed to improve in time. One split second has taken days and hours of time at doctors and hospitals. Doctors said safety glasses may have made this blunt blow even worse.
    It wasn't a car repair accident but has brought my car playing and yard work to a halt for 11 months and counting. An eye is an amazing thing.
    Do whatever you can to protect them.
     
  21. edweird
    Joined: Jan 4, 2009
    Posts: 3,186

    edweird
    Member

    oh, one more thing, i was grinding a while back. i had my glasses and goggles on. i got a piece of steel in my good eye.had to go get it drilled out. the doc bandaged me up real good. i was totally blind for a while until the bandage came off. NOT A GREAT EXPERIENCE FELLAS!!!
     
  22. devilleish
    Joined: Jan 15, 2007
    Posts: 254

    devilleish
    Member

    I've had metal shavings from turning brake rotors in my eyes, the one time I had to see my eye doctor to get one dug out he threatened to kick my ass in words that blunt if I came back for it one more time. I have also had the plastic retainer from a GM u-joint pop into my eye while heating it out. That was even less fun than any piece of metal.
     
  23. firstgear
    Joined: Jun 11, 2011
    Posts: 112

    firstgear
    Member

    Personal protection equipment is a must.

    Friend was working on an exhaust and he didn't have safety glasses on, for what ever reason he looked right down the exhaust outlet and the cutting torch let off the excess fuel in the exhaust and blew particles of rust into his eyes. Both of them. He ended up sitting in a chair for over two hours while the doc removed the rust particles. He was laid up for two weeks afterwards. Owns his business so he took a hit in the wallet too.

    I always grab my safety goggle and put them over my glasses. Can see just ok, but tell myself better than if I had something in my eye. I also grab my headgear to protect my ears when I am hammering something or if I am using my cutoff wheel. At work we implemented 100% compliance to hearing protection in the machine shop and it drastically
    cut down on the amount of hearing impairments that we have.

    You have to protect yourself, even if you have a spare eye, fingers, ear........
     
  24. JunkYardGuy
    Joined: Sep 6, 2009
    Posts: 82

    JunkYardGuy
    Member

    Good advice. I picked up a good pair of landscaper safety glasses for eye protection when Im working in my shop or doing work in the yard. Found they are very comfortable and do a good job keeping foreign objects out of my eyes, sometimes I forget that I even have them on.
     
  25. If you have or buy one of the IR pneumatic side grinders get the googles not just the glasses the air it takes to run it will blow crap all over the place that was my last trip to the eye doctor he had to remove it with a laser it took me like 3 months to get over it
     
  26. Safety threads are always welcome....
    Something to take into concideration=
    After a day of fun"work" welding ,grinding and more of the same with all my gear on- yes,had the drill in my eye before, I cleaned up and headed for the shower. Low and behold I had metal in my hair/on the top of my forehead that when the water hit it,it went into an eye.That was another trip to the Dr. Just concider this.Just because your gear is on,doesn't mean your metal free. And I would hope an explination about using an air chuck to blow yourself shouldn't be necessary.....Be safe......
     
  27. El Caballo
    Joined: Mar 3, 2001
    Posts: 6,283

    El Caballo
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    Remember, PPE does not make you bulletproof. I've worked jobsites around the world and guys still manage to get hurt. In addition, try to manage your work task in a way that you set it up properly in order to "engineer out" potential hazards as much as possible. Its like a START card at work, stop and think about the task and how you are going to do it, it works wonders.
     
  28. plan9
    Joined: Jun 3, 2003
    Posts: 4,078

    plan9
    Member


    Maybe try dabbing a little rainX on the inside of your prescriptions and safety glasses? Havent had the problem but worth a try.
     
  29. MikePA
    Joined: Nov 6, 2007
    Posts: 31

    MikePA
    Member

    I got the tiniest piece of metal in my eye and had to get it ground out with a little die grinder. The metal is toxic to the eye and immediately starts to destroy the tissue around it. A real wake up call for me to be careful. Nice to be able to see your kids get older........
     
  30. Yes, I agree. I'm always getting after the techs at work about this. I only have one good eye, and have had trips to the emergency ward, even with the proper safety equipment. It isn't fun when the "good eye" is bandaged and you have "no sight". I'm a bit obsessed about eye protection, just ask Glassguy. :D
     

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