Wear those face shields

[92U 3406]

In my first 9 months in the trade I witnessed a guy take a pressure wash hose off under pressure from the wand. Hose whipped up and tore him open right down the side of his nose. Just caught the edge of his eye and part of the tear duct if I recall it right. Last I heard his vision was severely limited in that eye. That was another re-enforcing point to keep those glasses on whenever at work.

 

[colson04]

In my first 9 months in the trade I witnessed a guy take a pressure wash hose off under pressure from the wand. Hose whipped up and tore him open right down the side of his nose. Just caught the edge of his eye and part of the tear duct if I recall it right. Last I heard his vision was severely limited in that eye. That was another re-enforcing point to keep those glasses on whenever at work.

Pressure washers and drilling rigs go hand in hand. If the floorhand isn't tripping pipe, he had better be cleaning something. That said, it's always the guy with the least experience running it and they have to be babysat for a while until they get over that desire to hurt themselves. I've witnessed guys washing their boots while wearing them, trying to take a wand off while pressurized, trying to wash their gloves while wearing them, two greenhats washing each other's boots off, and always, not using the full face shield that they were provided, or wearing it but having the shield in raised position. Everyone you stop them in the act, they look at you like "what? I didn't do anything wrong" We fired one guy in his first day after telling him for the third time not to wash his boots while wearing them.

 

[DMiller]

Scary how invincible some consider themselves to be.

 

[doublewide]

Did that happen very long ago ? How is his eye now ?

They were able to re stitch it but unfortunately deformed the eyeball causing him to have to wear corrective lenses.

 

[Tinkerer]

Sad, at least he didn't loose the vision.
I am deeply interested in eye injury posts. We all need to be repeatedly reminded of how fragile we are. Especially our eyes.
I cannot say too many times that I experienced a punctured eye cutting a cable on a trencher. No eye protection.

 

[Flat Thunder Channel]

I try to wear my safety glasses and full face shield for all grinding operations. We were forced to use them in industrial settings now I'm just used to it. The face shields that wrap slightly under your chin are great. They are more form fitting and help prevent stray pieces of steel from bouncing around the open ends. Only difficult part is not removing my beard look the flip up.

Watching Dad get a piece of steel dug out of his eyeball with a large bore needle also helps you remember. Ain't nobody got time for that!

 

[old1]

Yes,

Many years ago; when I was an underground Coal Miner. I was changing cutting bits; carbide or diamond tip, I can't remember that though. The bits were in the cutting head that cut the coal and rock. The main body of the bits were held in by big snap rings. One snap ring flew out of the snap ring pliers; and hit me directly in the lens of my safety glasses. It was a perfect shot.

The lens hazed/shattered ; but stopped the high flying snap ring, from hitting my eye. Oh Yea, I never forgot that.

old1

 

[HardRockNM]

Situational but when cutting, grinding, hammering, doing anything else with a projection hazard or getting under a vehicle? You bet! Mercifully I don't have any eye injury horror stories to share, but can't say the same for hands/fingers.