Don't be me .....
 

Wear your safety glasses!
Working on the lawn Friday afternoon ang grab the trimmer. I say to myself. "Myself you keep saying you should wear safety glasses. Nah, I need new ones and will get some."
Within 30 seconds a pebble comes at me at a million miles and hour and whack! Right in the eye. So now stupid goes and puts on the glasses. Looking through them I'm like now I know why I don't wear them, everything is hazy and I can't see s##t. I take the glasses off and realize it's not the glasses. I try not to panic and finish the lawn. Can barely keep my eye open.
Next morning it's even worse. Off to the walk in clinic. They look at it and send me to emerg. They look at it and give me a slip for emergency ophthalmologist for Sunday morning. All the time I'm think how stupid I was. Sunday morning still foggy. I spend 5 hours before getting to see the doc. After an exam they find only a scratch. Some drops and I'm good to go. What a crappy weekend! Monday morning and almost normal vision.
I'm still mad at myself as we need 2 eyes!
Wear your safety glasses!

Do you normally wear eyeglasses?

When I use my string trimmer I will sometimes just forget the safety glasses because I already wear glasses....which is not a good idea.

Was playing in a dart league.

Won my match on my second to last dart so as one does I threw the last one and in the same motion started walking to the board.

Damn thing hit a wire just right and came straight back at me.

Took a nick out of my glasses.

Was never happier to not have perfect vision.

I only wear reading glasses.

Wow, glad that the issue was just minor (scratch and drops) and educational (scary as heck).

Now that I wear glasses, I'm less likely to put on safety specific glasses, but I do try to always wear something.

Me too...should be better..Glad to read Rod will be okay.

Shopping around and safety glasses are under $10 :cool:

Yep. For $10 dollars my son would still have his left eye.

Great message, Rod, one that needs to be repeated often.

When I worked at Unilever we HAD to wear safety glasses in the factory. One warning only, then you were fired.

So I've gotten into the habit of wearing them since. Saved me, phew, mowing grass with the weed eater/weed whacker and a stone flew up and hit my safety glasses. impact was such that I was staggering around for a moment or two. Would have been worse without the $10 glasses.

Pretty rare you get a 2nd chance at something. I was lucky to get one. I really thought I was screwed.

After having a shard of rebar stuck in my eye while wearing safety glasses and a full face shield, I'm a firm believer in them. I'm almost to the point of having my gardener wear them when doing my lawn but I don't know how to convince him of the need to protect his eyes.
I'm appalled at the number of shows that have guys drilling or grinding on stuff that don't have safety glasses on when doing so. Sends the wrong message to kids or anyone else watching the shows about how valuable your sight is.

I wear my sunglasses when doing yard work, and a large hat to block the sun from my head. My sun glasses have taken a few hits from debris over a lifetime of 60 years of yard work.

I really wish there was a good option for eye protection from debris. Most goggles will fog up like crazy on my face as I am sweating. They become unusable in short order from fogging up.

My sunglasses are prescription lenses, polarized, with several coatings on them, and supposed to be shatter resistant.

Many years back I was driving my 914, no AC, so roof off, windows down, tons of air blowing and all of a sudden my eye felt like I had a knife in it stuck in the iris. Fortunately for me it was a work day, and my regular ophthalmologist was in his office. I pleaded for an emergency appointment. He pulled a little shaving of steel out. It was tiny on his table, but huge in my eye. I was very happy to pay his bill.

So, lesson learned, moving forward, no more yardwork. What were you thinking?

There's nothing as scary as when the Doc says "OK, look at the light on the wall and DON'T move while I drill this out."

When I worked at Howmet in my early twenties...my dept was next to the 'cutoff dept',
Safety glasses were required, but they didn't yet have the side shields.

I was at least 50 ft away from the cutoff wheel when a fragment hit my eye from the side. Luckily the Dr got it out easily. The side flaps would have stopped it.

I had been using the plasma cutter (tiny sharp bits of metal) and put a drop sheet over some nearby tools I wanted keep clean.

Every thing went well and I packed all the stuff up but a tiny bit of metal came off the drop sheet when I folded it and got me in the eye. Hurt like hell. i phoned the doc and they are talking about sometime next week. I explained and they said come in right now. There was a new doc, a German guy. He laughed and said "You're lucky, I've just spent the last two years at London's best eye hospital." and picked the metal out with the end of a hypodermic needle.

I guess it could happen during all kinds of situations.
It’s not like you can walk around with full face helmet and shield.

^^^That's true but anytime you're using rotating equipment that is making debris it is only prudent to take precautions.
There was a guy in the Precision Assembly area at work that was missing for a while. When he came back I asked where he'd been. Said he'd been drilling a small hole, didn't have his safety glasses on as it was only a small hole and the drill broke and nearly took out his eye.

One of the guys in our shop was brushing something on the wire wheel of the bench grinder…no goggles. A wire came off and hit him in the eyeball. Anther guy pulled it out with a pair of needle nose pliers and then he went to the ER. Dr said it just missed blinding him by 2 mm. That’s the day I determined I would use eye protection as needed. Yes I wear goggles when string trimming. Took the side window out of my pick up truck one time while string trimming.

My dad was using a wire wheel and had a small wire embed in his eye when he was younger. I usually wear eye protection (I consider my glasses eye protection, even if not as much as actual safety glasses).

When I was younger, I didn't always.