Just a friendly reminder, wear your safety glasses...

Or risk losing your sight like I did. You know how it goes, we've all been there. You're under your vehicle and just have to do a teeny bit of grinding and the glasses are just out of reach. Just don't look at it, right? WRONG!

Well, fuck that. From now on, I'll wear them every time, no matter how much of a pain inthe ass it is to go get them. Long story short, I ended up with a foreign body (piece of metal) in my eye and a trip to the E.R. and the opthamologist. I'm lucky, I'm going to be ok. But your eyesight is nothing to fuck around with. Please take all necessary precautions when you're working on your stuff.

And for the record, even a shot of morphine ain't shit when there's a 1/3mm peice of metal in your eye. How could something so tiny hurt so bad? Please don't get in such a hurry you take your safety for granted.

 

ouch at least ur ok

 

ive had to visit ER twice because ive had pieces of metal stuck in my eye - sitting in that chair with your chin in a strap, forehead against a head band to keep your head still watching a pair of tweasers coming towards your eye and knowing theyre trying to get it out because you feel your eye being pulled about and your vision keeps going blurred isnt fun.

i always always wear safety glasses now. its not worth taking a chance.

 

there's nuthin I enjoy more than a trip to the docs where they take a dremel to my eye and grind out metal and rust spots.

I've only gone once, but the doc said I had rust on my eye from previous incidents. rust is in now, so I guess that makes my rusty eye extra cool.

 

Shoulda left it in there, I hear "eye patina" is all the rage now.
Seriously glad your ok.

 

Yeah, they used some kind of mini dremmel. It sucked bad. I got the metal in my eye this past Friday. I didn't even notice it when it happened. Last night (Monday), it started giving me a fit. By this morning, I couldn't see, I was so light sensitive, I couldn't even open either eye. And the pain, the pain was like somebody had my eyeball in a vise.

All this from a 1/3mm piece of metal. And yes, like you, it developed a rust ring and had to be ground out with that mini dremmel. The doc said "now just try to be still while I grind on your eye", lol.

Thanks for the well wishes guys. Please take it from me and don't take chances when it comes to safety.

 

I get the squeamy creepys just thinking about this. I always wear my safety glasses or face shield.

 

Been there, but for me the worst part was when I went in for an unrelated MRI years later... as a precaution they asked if I had any metal in my body before scheduling the procedure, and I thought about that metal in my eye. Had to schedule a separate procedure to confirm whether I had residual metal in my eyes before I could do the MRI. They were clear that any old metal in my eyes coulda blinded me during the MRI procedure.

Just not worth the headache... still not 'diligent', but I wear safety glasses more frequently after that mess.

Glad to hear you're gonna be OK.

 

Ouch! I hate just reading these kind of threads.

I am just going out to grab some lunch now, but after reading this I am putting on my glasses just in case something comes out of nowhere.

 

I've got a small piece of metal in my eyeball from 20+ years ago. The <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/cjbrown/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <woNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026"/> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout v:ext="edit"> <o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->Ophthalmologist only found it about 2 years ago but it's too deep to go in after.

Grinding, drilling, dremeling... doesn't matter -I always wear safety glasses now.

 

Just went through a trip to the ER. Left eye has a cataract. No vision...basically, blind. Getting it repaired mid-April. So, with my right eye working just fine, onto a creeper, under my 39, to plan my battery cable run. I thought my eye glasses were enough. Nope. Wrong. A piece of dirt crusted rust hit my right eye and I knew right away that I was in trouble. Sunday. Alone at my shop.
A few miles to the ER. I could not keep my eye open without extreme discomfort. A VERY harrowing drive. Luckily, the sawbones got the pieces out and I am now back to normal...sorta. This is not the first time in my half century I have done this. Now I will ALWAYS wear a face shield when anywhere near anything that can cause a problem. Everyone...BE CAREFUL. There are more ways to screw yourself up than you know.

 

Ouch. I cringed when I read that first sentence. Good thing you were thinking about that. I can't even imagine the pain if something like that happened!

 

Just went through the old eye dremel myself. Hurt like a b*%%h. Piece of metal bounced off of the inside of my safety glasses and into my cornea. No more safety glasses for me. I went and bought a pair of IGogs safety goggles so it won't happen again.

 

Hurt? I don't know how your Dr does it, but mine always uses the numbing drops so I don't feel anything. It sucks having to watch him work, but there's no pain at all. The next few days can be a touch uncomfy, but they always give me pain pills and drops. You guys are making it sound as if they strap you to a table, give you a bullet to bite on and use a flapper-disc Makita grinder.

 

Watch them bungee cords too
one took my right eye now i gotta shoot as a leftie and i can't see 3d images or catch a football at eye level without it hitting my nose..or fly a plane

 

Mine used the drops too. didn't feel a thing when he used a hollow drill bit, drilled around the metal and took the plug out. For a couple of day's I could see the hole in my eye.Then one day it was gone..Safety glasses a must.

 

Good luck on your eye man, that's serious stuff.

Had the same thing last year, wearing goggles and a face mask, grinding all day and no problem. At night a piece washes from my head into my eye while in the shower, it took about 2 days for it to hurt like hell and I couldn't see anything.My vision went from 20/15 to worse then 20/50 overnight and after 3 weeks was at 20/20, a year later it was finally back to normal.

So wear goggles, face mask and a hat or something on your head and be careful when you wipe the sweat or take a shower.

 

I got really lucky about 5 years ago when I caught a tiny pinhead sized filing in my right eye while grinding. I was able to rinse it out. My cousin wasn't as lucky. While doing the same thing, he lost his vision in one eye. It later became infected, & eventually had to be removed. Today he wears a glass eye;........all because he was in a hurry. WEAR THE SAFETY GLASSES!!!!!!!!!

 

I went the dremel tool route,it was kind of cool looking but the feel of rats chuwen on my eye ball I don't ever want to repeat.

 

Good luck man.

I've been cutting/fitting boxing plates with an angle grinder this past week, and end up wearing goggles, a respirator (dust mask causes my glasses to fog), and ear muffs. I'm sure I look like a total dork, but still have my eyesight, hearing, and I'm not sneezing aluminum oxide out my nose...

 

I usually wear TWO pairs of eye protection when running a grinder -- one a close fitting set of safety glasses and another full shield.

Why? Just take a close look at that cut off wheel that is spinning 15,000 RPM right in alignment with you frigging face . . . or the grinding wheel on the bench grinder that you're standing in front of. Ask yourself what happens when one of those wheel explodes . . . bad shit! A good friend of mine lost his right eye because of this -- and he had a face shield on and the wheel was NOT worn.

I didn't use to ponder it one bit . . . but I'm an older bastard now!

 

its ironic that you post this...I was grinding on an axle Saturday and got a piece of metal in my eye. I went to to an Eye DR Sunday at of all places a Walmart here in Round Rock. She got the metal out and put some drops in. I wear glasses and instead of having a patch over my eye she put some contacts in. After 24 hours...No more pain. The bill was only 65 bux and i was only there for 45 mins. Nothing like 8 hours at the ER..moral of the story. Wera safety glasses and If you do get something in your eye, Go to an Optometrist...NOT the ER!

 

Mine used the numbing drops as well. But my eye was so light sensitive that just having it open while he worked was hellish. It was all I could do to hold still. And I've been hurt bad before, cut off a finger tip, kidney stone, 5 broken noses, misc. other broken bones, etc.. Even the kindey stone couldn't compare to the pain in my eye from a 1/2mm piece of metal that had been there for a couple of days until it started to rust. And I had a BIG shot of morphine a half hour before the doc got to work and it still sucked.

The bottom line is I deserve to be blind for my stupidity. Luckily I'm going to be fine. I just hope this tough lesson that I learned can remind everyone else to not take any chances. You only get one set of eyes.

Oh, and it's also an excellent point someone made about being extra careful wiping your face off after grinding. I had never even thought about that until it was posted. Just be careful out there guys. And thanks for the well wishes.

I'll post some pics of my bloodied mangled eye and the piece of metal tomorrow.

 

Been there done that and own the "that was really stupid" shirt to go with it.
It's not just when using a grinder, a guy has to have good eye protection when welding or using a torch too.

 

I had to have major surgery last year on both my eyes because of stupid things I did when I was a kid.

I had something called "recurring corneal erosion". This probably happened because of damage I did years ago. I'm not sure what I did to my right eye (I think a snowball when I was 11)...but I remember clearly (no pun intended) when I damaged the left eye fixing a 1970 Cutlass around 1992. The left eye was the worse.

I did go to the emergency room right away and they did get the metal out, but years later it started bothering me again. Little by little it got worse. I would wake up in the morning in pain and it would take a while before it got better.

After a few years it got to the point where I was waking up 2 or 3 times a night in excruciating pain. See, what happened was the cells never really healed all that well. The cells were like a tile floor that wasn't cemented down correctly. After a while walking on them they start moving around. At night the damage starts to heal but when your eyes move around in a dream, it's like ripping off a scab.

It got so bad towards the end that I would go a few days without being able to use my eyes very much. Nobody who hasn't gone through it can know how bad it hurts.

To make a long story short, what they had to do was scrape off the top 2 layers of skin, and abrade the remaining layer. The idea is something like painting stainless...the paint will stick better if you sandblast the metal first. So they took a scalpel and scraped the skin off, then roughed up my eyes with a laser.

$4000 later I'm fine. The plus side is that they went ahead and reshaped my eyes while they were at it and I no longer need glasses.

 

A "real" rodder would grind it off with his own dremel,lol. Walk it off. Glad you are ok.

 

Again, I'd say your Dr is to blame for the pain. I've had metal removed form my eyes many times by several Dr's and they ALL did it in the dark. Not one of them ever left the light on in the exam room. The use a low, indirect light that you cannot see easily. The whole process is usually pain free, even with the mini-grinder. I would question ANY Dr who gave my morphine prior to the work and I'd certainly never go back to that Dr, ever.

 

The opthamologist office the procedure was done in was dark. There was one tiny indirect light on in the office about the brightness of a Bic lighter. But in my condition and even with my eyes closed, it was like staring into the sun. The machine the doc had to look through (magnifier?) had a light that shined right in my eye (I assume so he could see his work). They gave me the morphine shot in the E.R. and then sent me to the opthamologist. And removing the metal wasn't painful at all. It was the light and the grinding of the rust ring that hurt like an mnf'er.

Truth be told, if there was any incompetance (besides my own for not wearing safety equipment), it was with the E.R. doc. Granted, I was in a lot of pain and squirming around pretty good. But this E.R. doc looked to be all of 12 years old and seemed too nervous to do the job himself. Not to mention when he first came in, he turned ALL the lights on including the big spotlight right in my face. He quickly gave up and sent me on to the opthamologist after the morphine shot.

 

At least it was traditional steel and not fiberglass!! When I was young and dumb, I have made several trips to have dirt dug out, steel removed and rust scraped out. Not much fun but not all that painful either. They used one set of eye drops to deaden the eye and another set to dilate the pupils, hence the sensitivity to light. It's quite a trip to watch the doctor scrape the rust out with a little scraper. One time I had to drive home afterwards and could barely see because I was covering my eyes with my arm to block the light and I got picked up for speeding!! Luckily I knew the cop and he let me go and I made it the rest of the way home without any more trouble. Being stupid is a great way to learn the hard way.

 

It can happen doing things other than grinding , too. I was working on my brakes over the weekend. I wear prescription glasses and forgot to switch from my good ones to my shop glasses while I was rebuilding my wheel cylinders. I asked one of my kids to pull off my good glasses and grab the shop glasses out of my toolbox. While he was getting the glasses, I continued spraying brake cleaner on the parts I was cleaning. Of course, the wheel cylinder is concave and I sprayed it directly on it, so it shot straight back into my eyes.

I don't know if you've ever had brake cleaner in your eye, but it ain't fun! I had to flush my eyes out with water for 15 minutes per the indications on the can. I added some eye drops after I was done rinsing and had some seriously sore eyes the next day.

It's just Murphy's Law. I ALWAYS wear glasses when I work on the car and ALWAYS wear goggles over my glasses when I grind except, of course, when I don't "have time" and that's when something is headed straight for the ol' eyeball!