Invest in eye protection!

77GreenMachine

Phillip Talton
Joined
Mar 30, 2010
Location
Trinity, NC
I'm Pretty sure there is similar threads on here but I figured I'd remind everyone how important this is again. Saturday I was using a Saw-Zall to cut off a leaf spring bracket on my YJ. I was laying on my back under the jeep, with safety glasses on but I still managed to get a piece of metal in my eye. It hit my cheek and bounced behind my glasses into my eye, and was quite hot. @adamk was there helping me and we stopped right away, and I went inside and managed to get the tiniest piece of metal out of my eye. Seriously it was the size of a spec of dust. It hurt like hell and felt like there was more in it, but I carried on and felt better within 20 minutes. That night I made dinner, and right before we went back to the garage it flared up and began bothering me again. I looked at it again, ran a Q-Tip thru my eye lid with no luck, applied some eye drops and went back to the garage where it felt okay again.
Sunday morning I woke up fine. Made breakfast for the kids and chilled out but within an hour of being up it flared up again. This time much worse, and it never went away. Eyeball constantly leaking tears and felt like I had sand in my eye. My buddies urged me to go to the doctor right away. I did not want to go to the ER, and I didn't want my wife to have to sit in the van with the kids for who knows how long at the urgent care. So my #1 Knee Grow @CasterTroy came to the rescue and hauled me and my leaking eyeball to the Urgent Care in Randleman. Me and Troy both celebrated 2 birthdays while we waited there. A couple years older, I was finally called back and by this time I could no longer open my left eye. Doc put some numbing drops in my eye and within 30 seconds I could have kissed him. First time I felt relief in hours. He prodded around and didn't see anything still in my eye, but then put dye in it and looked with a black light. Once he done that, his whole demeanor changed and he said "Holy cow! You have a huge, deep abrasion"
He put some goop in my eye ball and told me not to work, go home and rest, don't open my eyes as much as I could help it. No TV, no phone, no reading, etc. and told me to come back around 4-5 the next day. So Troy hauled me up to CVS to drop off my prescription for antibiotic ointment and some Cook-Out. I could at least feed the man for ruining his day with my cry for help. I was feeling much better, but about 15 minutes after leaving the numbing stuff started to wear off and I felt worse than before. And riding in a car with my eyes closed is a fantastic way to get car sick. If that ride had been about 5 minutes longer I probably would have hurled. By now my left eye lid was swollen shut.
By the time Troy got me home I was in more pain than any other point since this happened. I waited a while before I could eat. By now, it hurt unexplainably bad to open the eye that wasn't even affected, since it caused my left eye to move as well it would rub and cause awful pain that would make me cringe and want to crawl out of my skin. I took Benadryl to sleep the day away. Once I couldn't sleep anymore I just sat in bed, bored, wore out all the music on my phone, and thought about how people must feel when they lose their sight completely forever. I can't imagine dealing with that.
Monday morning rolled around to be no better really. It still hurt awfully bad to open my good eye, so I was forced to leave them shut all day. My wife did not trust the Urgent Care place and wanted me to see a real eye Doctor so she got me an appointment around 2pm. Once there my wife lead me in like a blind man (cause I basically was) I got in to see the Doc and he looked me over good. He confirmed the same, deep cut, but in more detail. I had a deep gash, as he described, right on my cornea. Had in been just a little deeper it could have been much worse. He also said there was basically a flap of skin in there from the cut and that's why I had so much discomfort. So he removed that and put a contact in my eye. The contact acts like a band-aid covering the cut. He'd also given me numbing drops as well as dilated that eye.. I left there feeling amazing, able to see pretty good without excruciating pain for the first time in over 24 hours. An hour later that all wore off again and it felt bad, but nothing like before.
This morning I awoke to a crusted shut eye. Once showered up and clean, most of the swelling in my eye lid had gone down and feels wayyyy better. I am working from home today, able to see just fine with only minor discomfort that feels like I have an eye lash in my eye. Things are a touch blurry from my left eye and I'm still sensitive to bright light. I go back to the eye Doc today at 3, and feel good enough to drive myself. I expect to be back to normal tomorrow. While short lived, that was an awful experience, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. My 2 knee surgeries weren't as bad it seemed.

I share all of that with you to encourage you to ALWAYS wear safety glasses. Again, I was wearing them but it happened anyway. I will be ordering safety goggles today, along with a face shield, and more glasses with the foam gasket. I know the face shields get scratched and you can't see good, but they're cheap to replace over and over again. I'm several hundred dollars into doctor visits now, that would have bought a lot of protection, and I'd spend thousands not to feel that pain and discomfort again!

Huge shout out to all my homies that were checking on me, praying for me, and called to chat and help pass the time.
 
TLDR version: metal will scratch the shit out of your eyeball. Invest in (and friggin wear) good, quality eye protection. They the only eyeballs you gon' get.
 
Side note: The Okra at Cook-out is amazeballs. And despite all my efforts of doubling the speed limits and using the emergency brake to drift my Accord around all the sharp turns...No chunks were blown.

Glad you're feeling better
 
Side note: The Okra at Cook-out is amazeballs. And despite all my efforts of doubling the speed limits and using the emergency brake to drift my Accord around all the sharp turns...No chunks were blown.

Glad you're feeling better

While sitting alone in darkness and pain, it occurred to me that I should have asked for the fried okra with their Cajun seasoning they put on their fries!
 
Glad your cut wasn't deeper.

I'll use that as a reminder to wear my protections more often. Face Shields FTW.

I love my Optrel unit :

 
I am also a member of the scratched-cornea-contact-bandaid-bought-the-doc-a-bimmer club.

WEAR DEM GLASSES!

if you really want to feel alive, get 6 stitches in your eyeball. While you are still awake.

WEAR DEM GLASSES!
 
Man, so sorry to hear you went through all that.

I wear a UVEX face shield with a number 3 shade lens when running a grinder or anything. I wear safety goggles underneath the face shield when laying on my back under vehicles running a grinder or whatever because shit flies everywhere bouncing off of everything. I had to do quite a bit of that working on my YJ. I've heard the horror stories from a good friend many years ago. Very similar experience to you.

faceshield.jpg
 
I had about the same experience. I was grinding on a jeep frame. Had safety glasses on but somehow some metal got past my glasses and into my eye. I thought I got it all out but apparently I didnt and a few days later I was like you. My eye was crusty and swollen shut. Got a friend to take me to the ER. DR, removes the metal pieces I missed. Gives me a script for some eye goop. I have a follow up with the eye doctor in a few days. Well eye is better but not great. Go to the eye doctor and they look in my eye and see there is more metal in my eye that the ER doctor missed. Go figure. Eye doctor digs that out and grinds the rust spot off of my cornea. Now I wear a full face shield over my safety glasses when grinding.
 
I got lucky. Grinder while wearing a full shield - but a cheap ass one, sliver bounced off something and landed in eye. Could see just a spec, flushed with water, bugged me for a bit but no real damage. Again, got lucky. Better equipment!
 
I weld and grind naked, with no protection, but I do have contacts, and I can't tell you how many times they have saved me from hot shards, spray paint, and brake parts cleaner.
 
If you do get a piece of steel in your eye a rare earth magnet works wonders to get it out. Aluminum is a whole different story--get your ass to an optometrist asap.
 
I weld and grind naked, with no protection, but I do have contacts, and I can't tell you how many times they have saved me from hot shards, spray paint, and brake parts cleaner.
Brake and carb cleaner have a nice sting to them. I swear contacts suck it up and slowly release it back into your eye for the next hour. I do grind and weld in crocs. Yes they have a lot of melty holes in them.
 
I've had...3 pieces of metal get in my left eye. Always the left one. Always been wearing safety glasses too. They'll get stuck in there and half ass heal over, but then start to rust. I go to the eye doctor, they pull it out, and run a dremel tool in the hole to clean it.

Can confirm that the fluorescent eye drops to highlight the metal pieces does NOT taste good. Two drops and it runs right through my sinuses and out of my mouth. Always freaks them out when I ask for a paper towel, some water, and a trash can ahead of time.
 
I was grinding once and a piece came off, bounced off my safety glasses and went straight up and hit a fluorescent light 10ft up on my ceiling and shattered the bulb. I am always sure to wear glasses now!
 
I’m pretty good about wearing eye protection. Now I’ve made it a point to protect my feets. This past summer I was cutting up sections of threaded rod with an angle grinder to make concrete anchor bolts. I was in my driveway wearing flip flops. I’d already cut probably 25, got to literally the last cut and a one foot piece of that threaded rod launched like it was shot out a rifle. It hit me square on my big to and destroyed my toenail. Hurt like a mutha and bled like hell! I could barely wear a shoe on that foot for a few days. I make it a point to throw something on my dogs after that.
 

I’m a big fan of this style mask. Seals tight around your eyes like googles.

Yup, ordering some of those for the shop. No more safety squint behind safety glasses.

Also one of the weirder pricing break downs I've seen.
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Man, so sorry to hear you went through all that.

I wear a UVEX face shield with a number 3 shade lens when running a grinder or anything. I wear safety goggles underneath the face shield when laying on my back under vehicles running a grinder or whatever because shit flies everywhere bouncing off of everything. I had to do quite a bit of that working on my YJ. I've heard the horror stories from a good friend many years ago. Very similar experience to you.

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Reminds me of spaceballs lol


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