Another one for safety glasses

[Rayanth]

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

 

[Tin Falcon]

good point
safety goggles are the minimum eye protection USAF rules require double eye protection for some things like grinding do not be heitant to add a face shield or goggles for grinding or chemical operations. like anodizing be safe guys.
Tin

 

[steamer]

Ryan,

I do hope your feeling better in a short while with no lasting effects!

I've had similar incidents in the past, but I got lucky...it his the brow or the lid as I was blinking ....

Best of luck to you, and to others pay attention!

Dave

 

[Foozer]

I know the story, hated side shields, more chips in the eyes with em than without. Unfortunate with your employer (did 20 years with em) your current requirement to wear double protection in high risk areas will fade. Doesn't take long for the folks to figure out that if they don't report the incidents then the PITA mandate becomes forgotten. We would get the ATTA Boy gifts for going 30 days with no reported incident, they still happened, key word "Reported"

Not right, but just the way it goes. Safety is Schedule driven

Robert

 

[Rayanth]

It's going to get a LOT of complaints, but the high rate of occurrence is forcing the 2nd level to do something. The common mutterings are that face shields scratch too easily and quickly become a hindrance - they're hard to work around, even making it difficult to lift your arms over your head to perform the operation they're supposed to keep you safe in.

Goggles are fine, as a crew chief in the USAF, we were required to wear goggles instead of glasses, for any operation that could cause metal shavings (ie, any metal striking metal) over shoulder height. And it worked. But at the Big Lazy B, we are required at all times to wear safety glasses, and goggles don't fit well over glasses. my safety glasses are larger prescription glasses that i'm not sure it's even possible to fit goggles over... and I can't just take off my glasses, replace them with goggles (which are also safety rated, so can be used to replace the glasses, temporarily), and still be able to see what i'm doing, I am far too nearsighted for that.

It will be an annoyance, but we'll just have to find a way. I'm all for trying - metal in the eye is quite an annoying feeling.

- Ryan

 

[rake60]

My career as a machinist spanned over 20 years.
During that time I had small chips get part my safety glasses 5 times.

The ER Doctor says, "You don't dare move.", while you can see a bright blue light and
a needle the size of a telephone pole approaching your eyeball.

The most painful safety glasses incident I remember was the time a chip bounced off of my
face and melted into the inside of the right side shield beside my eye.

I swatted the glasses away smelling burnt flesh.
Just then the floor foreman saw me and immediately started yelling at me for not having my
glasses on.

I yelled back a universal 2 word reply.
It wasn't "Happy Birthday".
:hDe:

Rick

 

[rustyknife]

You really do have to be careful working about above your head. I got a single drop of pag oil from an A/C compressor in my right eye....I spent an hour washing my eye with saline and water, My vision was fuzzy for a day, I thought I was going to be blind...very scary.

 

[ShedBoy]

I have had steel go in my eye, thought I got it out and carried on. 2 days later my eye was really huritng when I woke up to the point where I went to the doc. After close examination he found a tiny piece of steel in the middle of a rust spot on my cornea. First thing that hurt was the anisthetic to numb the eye, stung like the devil. Then the digging and pulling of the metal as the cornea heals quite quickly but the steel also rusts which get into the surrounding cornea. The worst part was when they use an algae brush (medical term for tiny die grinder) to grind out the rust which could not be all done at once due to the possibility of permanent damge. Went back 3 days in a row for more painful numbing and grinding. It is very hard to hold your eye open while you can see a tiny die grinder digging into it. Glasses and face shield are alot easier in the long run.

Brock

 

[Rayanth]

From what I can figure out, based on feel, there was a sharp-pointed tiny little piece of aluminum drill shaving that had managed to work its way up to the very soft tissue just under the bone of the eyebrow, on the inside of my eye. The sharp point dug into the tissue there, hence why they couldn't see the shaving at the E.R. and why it wouldn't move when i moved my eye.

after about 36 hours, in the dead of night, i woke up to the odd sensation of something falling across my eyelashes. I carefully (due to a metal shaving in my eye - pressure on that hurts) brushed it away and it felt like a piece of metal, but that was quite possibly from my hair or something. However my eye also felt different, and after a trip to the bathroom, i managed to work that stubborn piece of metal out!

So I'm back to normal; thankfully I didn't have to go to the eye surgeon and have them do more drastic things to get to it. I will be far more careful in the future!

- Ryan

 

[steamer]

Good to hear it man!

Dave

 

[stovepipe]

A couple of my neighbours wives think it amusing that I wear proper safety goggles (not glasses) over my ordinary spectacles when I'm machining or carrying out a process, something that their husbands do not engage in. My wife is completely supportive of me in this, appreciating that avoiding accidents is better than recovering from them.

Guide dogs are expensive to run, so avoid the accidents and you won't need one, even if you are a dog lover !

Dennis Franklin

 

[90LX_Notch]

I have had my fair share of crap in my eyes. The best thing that I have found to get debris/chips/foriegn matter out is to fill a cup with water and put your eye into it and blink. Hold the cup parallel to the ground and put your eye into the cup. While you blink into the water look up, down and side to side. Between the blinking, water and gravity the crap should float out as long as it is not embedded.

Last summer I had a few side millings from 3/8 thick stainless go into my eye at work. I filled a Gator Aid bottle with water and successfuly blinked them out.

 

[Tin Falcon]

I am the geek that wears safety glasses all the time. my work requires safety glasses my hobbies require safety glasses. home projects require safety glasses. So my everyday glasses are self tinting progressive bifocal safety glasses. I do get comments when I attend weddings etc.
Oh well !!!

 

[90LX_Notch]

Stuff can still get by safety glasses. When then stainless went in my eyes I had my glasses on and a baseball cap. The chips came around in a convection current from blowing off the fixture with compressed air. Probably a one in a million shot.