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.

Not these (although they are better than nothing)
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/...X970_V1___.jpg

These are what most of us are talking about, like cheap, full coverage sunglasses to protect against impact. They shouldn't fog up any/much more than regular glasses.
https://images.thdstatic.com/product...00b-e1_600.jpg

or "sun" version
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/...8._SL300__.jpg

or even the version that are "readers"
https://assets.fishersci.com/TFS-Ass...~p.eps-650.jpg

and even bifocals...
https://sep.yimg.com/ay/yhst-2418649...bifocal-13.jpg

Or how about photochromic bifocal safety glasses
https://www.phillips-safety.com/wp-c...TBG-206YBS.jpg

When I was younger (and much later), I never wore safety glasses and paid the price with dirt, rust, etc. in my eyes. I recently bought a face shield for when I’m using my cut off wheel. My regular eyeglasses, have helped tremendously.

Not all glasses are created equal, and the same applies to safety glasses.

Good man!

Doubling up if you wear prescripts is a plus. A metal spinter gets in an eye its annoying and if it rusts (it will start in 10 minutes with the saline (normal water and salt in your eye environment) is even more annoying. You will live.

I have seen guys cut badly, partially scalped and knocked out cold from cut off or angle grinding disc accidents. Over speed is the primary cause of disintegration -for example 22,000 rpm rated disc on a 30,000 rpm muffler cutter. Next twisting the disc or a nick/ fracture on the cutting edge. Full face shields are the go to for disc usage, metal, rock work.


Full face shields also provide a distance buffer from lens to flesh that safety glasses do not as they sit too close to the eye orbits. Side and temple protection is another factor. The right tool for the job for grinding, welding, chemical/ splash/ biologicals, rock, wood, metal all have unique needs for eye protection.

Think goal tending and physical dynamics of projectiles.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1661842666.jpg

Dont be this guy. And he still has the cool fake safety glasses on. With a full face shield this disaster would have been preventable.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1661842732.jpg

I was under the car last week when the cutting disk exploded because i caught the other side on the gearbox mount. I could so easily have been that guy. Great thing about face masks is they give some protection to the throat. Four inches lower and that guy would be dead.

I've had splinters or beads of molten steel removed from my cornea twice now, with a hypodermic needle. On one occasion I let it rust and they drilled a crater of my cornea out around it because the rust can cause problems, apparently.

But PPE can be dangerous in itself. Yesterday I was using an electric chainsaw with goggles on and cut through the cable. With ear defenders I was concerned something could fall on me and me not hear it coming.

It's our job to destroy ourselves. Men are the dispensable sex. We do the risky harmful and dangerous stuff so women and children don't have to. They can if they want to, of course, but we thrive on it.

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk

You are very lucky. I had a friend who took a piece of the trimmer line right in the eye....like an arrow. The doc's spent months trying to save his eye, but in the end nothing could be done. He was 22 at the time. Wear your safety glasses always when working with a trimmer !

Safety glasses for trimming yes.
What about the mower and blower?

^^^ I never do for the mower or blower.
I'm sure they recommend it. Again, I feel somewhat safe because I wear eyeglasses always.

This thread is a good reminder, glad you are ok. I wear glasses and can get lazy about adding protection. I'm buying a face shield today.

When I was in high school, working on the brakes on my 67 Mustang, I put the pointy end of this tool in my right eye. I'm very lucky I am not blind in that one.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1661867821.jpg

Since it’s generally pretty much warm / hot around here and I wear shorts most of the year, I am now in the habit of wearing tall rubber boots when string trimming. The debris will tear up your legs. I’m so old, I look at my skin and it starts bleeding!

What about the people that wear sandals? I guess you start with 10 toes.

When I was a kid we lived in Connecticut and had a very steep hill in the back yard. Great for tobogganing, not so great for mowing. Dad slipped one day and his foot went under the mower. Sliced off the side of his big toe. I didn't see it and only became really aware of it years later when every once in awhile he'd be pulling stitches out of his toe. The skin graft they put on didn't look all that pretty believe me, but it worked.
My lawn mowing days are over but I always wore at least good tennis shoes when mowing, never sandals. And yes, weed whacking with shorts on does tend to mess up your legs if you aren't wearing long pants.

When my dad was a teen, he wanted to go out, but his dad told him that he had to mow before he could go out. So as a teen, he was mowing pissed off, and pulled the mower back over the end of his foot. He was very lucky that all that got cut off was the top of the toe of his shoes. So even good tennis shoes are not necessarily that safe.

With my dad as an example I was/am always cognizant of not pulling the mower over my feet. I was thinking more in terms of them helping not tripping the way sandals or flip flops would cause me to.

when i was young i did alot grinding without safety glasses. Well i got a spark in there of course its always on a weekend. by monday my eye was red and so i went and got the rusty chunk dremeld out. After that i wore safety glasses. But a few months later it happend again! Well i knew where to go this time so it wasnt so bad. After that and ever since iv wore a full face shield. Many times i was glad i did. My brother gets them in his eyes too because he only wears safety glasses. But he usually can pick them out on his own. He only had to go get it grinded out once. A few years ago i was driving my jeep in the woods and a branch came off the roll bar an whipped me in the eye. It hurt bad I was afraid to open it but I opened it and it was totally fine. Got lucky! I try to be carefull. Sometimes I feel people that wear glasses are better off. atleast they have some protection. Also always keep the shield on your grinder and only take it off when you really have to get in a tight spot. It saves your clothes too

When I was a kid there were no safety glasses or ear muffs around our place :( I must have just been lucky not to lose an eye.

I always use a full shield when using my bench or angle grinder.
Maybe I'll wear it when doing the lawn. :D

LOL. We'd wash stuff in gasoline if we didn't have trike handy, blow out asbestos from brake drums, eat some paint chips - and finish off by going for a swim in raw sewage (with apologies to George Carlin).

We were fine!

I scratched a cornea working behind a computer once - bit of grit flung back by the fan exhaust straight in the eye. Wore a patch for a week. Arrrrgh maties. Was not fun, do not recommend.

Bolle Tracker IIs are no BS industrial safety glasses.

Well-fitting, vented, comfortable, detachable strap. Lenses available in clear, smoke, twilight - and 3 different shades for welding. I use them for riding motorcycles as well, as they fit inside a helmet just fine - must have at least half a dozen pairs.

From $12 on Flea Bay for the more common tints.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1662048117.jpg