Well, even safety glasses don't always protect you. My safety glasses for work have side shields, and a foam pad across the top designed to sit against the eyebrows to prevent debris from entering from above. I was drilling overhead, and the glasses slid down a little, letting several small metal chips through, and one entered.my left eye.
Even after flushing with saline solution for a while, I couldn't get the thing out, so I called our work's ambulance for a trip to the local emergency room (on site medical was closed). After a few tests, including dyeing my eye orange to look for scratches, and an xray, the doctor concluded that either the chip was gone or too small to be easily found...it's very deep in the upper eyelid. It doesn't move with eye movements so he presumes it is either embedded in the lid, which should cause swelling, or I am actually experiencing the remnants of a scratch to the eyelid, which should heal in just a couple days.
Long story short, just wearing your eye protection isn't enough. Wearing it PROPERLY is critical. This is the third debris-in-eye incident in just our area of this huge factory, in a week. We are now going to be mandated to wear either a face shield or splash goggles, in addition to our always-mandated safety glasses, any time we are drilling above our heads. It will be annoying, but at least we'll go home at the end of the day with as many eyes as we came in with!
- Ryan
Even after flushing with saline solution for a while, I couldn't get the thing out, so I called our work's ambulance for a trip to the local emergency room (on site medical was closed). After a few tests, including dyeing my eye orange to look for scratches, and an xray, the doctor concluded that either the chip was gone or too small to be easily found...it's very deep in the upper eyelid. It doesn't move with eye movements so he presumes it is either embedded in the lid, which should cause swelling, or I am actually experiencing the remnants of a scratch to the eyelid, which should heal in just a couple days.
Long story short, just wearing your eye protection isn't enough. Wearing it PROPERLY is critical. This is the third debris-in-eye incident in just our area of this huge factory, in a week. We are now going to be mandated to wear either a face shield or splash goggles, in addition to our always-mandated safety glasses, any time we are drilling above our heads. It will be annoying, but at least we'll go home at the end of the day with as many eyes as we came in with!
- Ryan