Free Safety Information
Eye Injuries - The Easiest Injury to Prevent
Eye injuries are one of the most common injuries that occur in the workplace but luckily they are one of the easiest to prevent.
Many of you will say that even though your people are required to wear eye protection, injuries are still taking place. If this is the case there will usually be two reasons for this.
Firstly, even though you provide eye protection and have eye safety rules in place it is possible that the rules are not being followed, or, more to the point, they're not being enforced by your supervisors and managers (and perhaps you). Like all safety rules, they are there to be complied with, not sometimes, but every time. So, enforce the rules and procedures.
The second reason why eye injuries are occurring will be probably because the eye protection provided is not suitable for the hazards your workers face.
There is a common misconception that safety glasses are suitable for preventing all types of eye injury hazards - they are not. Safety glasses are only designed and suitable for preventing eye injuries where a particle or particles likely to cause injury are forcibly projected at the worker and the particle is travelling at a right angle to the plane of the safety glasses lens i.e. the particle is travelling directly and forcibly at the eye ball.
Safety glasses are totally inadequate protection for preventing eye injuries when using a grinding wheel, rotating wire brush, linisher, angle grinder, when hammering metal on metal, using metal wedges, cold chisels, chipping welds etc.
Many eye injuries occur to people wearing safety glasses when using a grinding wheel or rotating wire brush because the grit or broken pieces of wire fly off at great speed and hit the worker's face, cheek bones and forehead and the particle is deflected under the safety glasses and into the eye.
If your people are using grinding wheels, angle grinders, rotating wire brushes or hammering metal on metal they must wear either goggles or a full face shield or, possibly, safety glasses and a face shield. With this gear being used the chances of having an eye injury is reduced to about zero. But the correct gear must be worn every time without exception.
Safety glasses are obviously inadequate for preventing chemical or liquid splash injuries. Use a chemical full face shield (it's sealed at the top to prevent liquid running down into the eyes) or chemical goggles. For dusty conditions goggles are the only solution.
Bottom Line: Safety glasses are not the solution to the prevention of all eye injuries. Choose the correct eye protection for the different eye hazards to which your employees are exposed.
AchieveSafety - www.achievesafety.com
