Ironically, I’m a bit of a safety nudge. I routinely holler at anyone working for me if they don’t (for instance) wear safety glasses. Stupid ladder tricks send me into screaming fits…
So this afternoon I’m taking out an old jalousy window for replacement. Sliding out the panes to make it lighter, not using so much as a hammer what can go wrong? I even notice that the edges are already chipped up. Do I put on my safety glasses? Needless to say…no.
Last pane, I see a chip heading right at my eyeball like a 3D movie..bing right in the eyeball. I keep my eyelids spread way apart, duck my head down hoping gravity will keep the chip down low instead of floating around and dial 911 from my cell. EMTs spot it perched right on my cornea. Luckily it hadn’t floated round scratching little grooves and they were able to fish it out with no damage other than a tiny bit of irritation.
Wear safetyyyyyyyyyyyy glassessssssssssssss…always.
PaulB
Replies
Damn. Lucky you are ok. Glad to hear that.
I'm not a professional, but I do tackle a lot of home improvement tasks. Anyway, I got around to taking out an old replacement window and as I pulled out the sash, a spring came out of the frame and almost took my eye out. Lucky somehow my hand got between the spring and my face and all I ended up with is a really black and blue finger.
After I was like "that was REALLY stupid." I simply forgot to be careful of the spring loaded parts attached to the sash.
I now wear glasses and gloves for almost anything I do
Yeah...the biggest danger is getting complacent.
Paul
I always say that I'm lucky that I need glasses, cause I used to use cutting torches and other tools without eye protection.
Doug
I've had other people working for me for 25+ years and I've always busted their chops big time about safety. The only serious close call I ever had happen to one of my people was years and years ago one of my guys was mixing fixer with sulfuric acid and let go of the dispenser tube. It flipped a little and spattered him in the eye. I didn't want to wait the ten minutes for the ambulance so I drove him to the hospital with him shrieking all the way. Almost lost his eye... I should've known better, I'm just very grateful I was so lucky.
>>"Wear safetyyyyyyyyyyyy glassessssssssssssss...always.
Glad to hear you are OK. Nothing more painful than an eye injury.
I got in the habit of wearing safety glasses basically at all times. I know they've saved me many times 'cause I can hear crap bouncing off them all the time.
When I used to work on multiple jobs at once, I'd always leave a pair at each site so I couldn't forget to have a pair on hand. A former boss recently had a near miss with a ricochet of a hardened masonry nail. Caught him right in the corner of his eye but luckily no eye damage. When I ran into him and saw his eye, I gave him a pair of my safety glasses. He still doesn't wear them though.
"Let's get crack-a-lackin" --- Adam Carolla
HEY YOU.................KEEP THEM GDM GLASSES ON........
lose your eyes....
...how you gonna know if your pee'n on yourself?
HUH
stupid?
.
.
'Wer ist jetzt der Idiot?'
ironically, my 5 year old son was saying good night to me while I was reading this earlier and managed to poke me in the eye with his finger. No injury but perhaps we should have them glasses permanently applied to our faces. I get mor things in my eyes when I'm sweeping, driving in the car rolling down the windows, playin with the kids, etc. Work is bad enough.
Same song differant dance, a woodworking friend of mine who ran his own shop told me turn on 2 switches when starting a machine, the first is in your head, the second is the machine. Glad to hear your OK.
When my daughter was about 4YO she stuck a steak knife in her eye. Wife had just got home from shopping andshe wanted to feed her dog, so while Mom was carying the rest of thegroceries in, Mary grabbed a knife and went to slit the bag open. Once through the paper, her thrust continued in a curve radiusing around her elbow. the knife coming right up to poke her eyeball and out again. The docs said that she was fortunate. It hit the white of the eye and not deep enough to let the pressure out. Another silly miillimeter deeper or over to the side, and she could have lost the eye.
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I'm often wearing my safety glasses up on the top of my head (kinda like a tiny hard hat). Then, when a chunk of something hits my face, I think, "Oh yeah, I should wear them glasses over my eyes!"
I was just thinking about another incident. I was on a jobsite last month on a rehab of an existing building. There was some brick in one area that needed to be chipped away to make way for the new framing that was going in. One of the carpenter's helpers was removing the brick....
I see him there on his knees whacking away at the brick w/ a framing hammer and no glasses. his face was right up next to the step he was smashing. I said something to his boss who was standing there with me and he kinda blew me off. I would have said something to the worker, but I don's speak Brazilian.
Glad you are okay.
Eye injuries are horrible, the thought of a doctor having to mess with my eyes and sew it up or pull something out just gives me the willies. I went to a continuing ed seminar a few years ago when I was still doing law, and there was a slide show from a md on eye injuries. I had to walk out - sh!t sticking out of people's eyes, eyeballs hanging out of the socket, all kinds of yech.
One of my worst scares was when I was pulling an old chest type freezer out of a house. I had a wrench to take the hinges off, got real close and when the last screw came out - WHAM - the friggen thing was spring loaded. Hit me right in the eye. Scared the chit outta me. It only takes a few seconds to get hurt.
I wear protective glasses lots more than I used to, but still not nearly enough.
Don K.
EJG Homes Renovations - New Construction - Rentals
Just a note to everyone...
Tim Uhler had an excellent thread in the Tools & Equipment forum at JLConline.com a while back about favorite safety glasses. You might wanna check it out.Jason Pharez Construction
Framing Contractor