Wear goggles or some type of eye protection. I just spent the last two hours in the ER having a doctor pluck a piece of rusty metal off my eyeball. (i tried to get it out, but no luck) Save yourself the hassle....wear goggles

Oh yea, no pics, sorry

BTDT
The nurse who was taking care of it had more facial hair than me.
Not a face I enjoyed having within 2 inches of my own
Lesson learned, never wanna see her again

I was wearing eye goggles at work when some fireproofing hit me in the face cuz some dumbshit was knocking it off. It went behind my eye soo I spent 4 hrs having a woman Doctor flush and pick it out. Ever had your eye in a clamp? Now that was fun, "Don't move or I could blind you". Never sat still for so long....

Geoff

Yuppers... me too. Whilst liv'n in NortDakota I was fix'n on mah muffler when a piece got in mah eye. Had to go to the eye doc to get the fine piece extracted. The best part was, instead of my reglar insurance paying for it the car insurance did since it was car related!

Wear dem dam goggles

...b

P.s. Chris... you OK?

I got a piece of aluminum in my eye. I could see the little bastard stuck in there. It was in there a few days (I'm a dumbass) before I finally got it out myself. STOOOPID!

I am glad you got to see me..


M

Yeah, getting a little piece of metal off the eye is totally un-cool.
Had it done about 15 years ago ( VW exhaust rust )
The doctor comes at you with a little cutoff wheel/dremel thingy and scuffs it off the surface of your eyeball.

Then ye get to wear a wee eye patch, Sonny Jim, an' ye start talkin' like a scurvy sea dog, arr.


KT

Wait until you get the joy of having the peice go in your eye and you can't find it. The doc tells you to wait until the peice rust so he can find it. That will really get to you. Always were your safety glasses.

Never hurts to keep a very clean magnet in your tool box for getting those peices of metal out of your eye.

carb cleaner is another fun thing to get in your eye...feels like, uh, carb cleaner...

Does that make your eyes blink faster?

Sorry, I couldn't resist

Once upon a time ago while standing on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, during a healthy storm, the plane I was standing under (C2) was hit by jet wash from a jet blast deflector failure. Thats the big thingy that pops up out of the flight deck behind the planes as they are launching. They were launching F-14's at the time. The jet blast pushed the C2 into another C2 that had its props turning. The resulting aluminium shower embedded slivers in me that I still pick out today. That was Roughly 15 years ago. One piece flew through my safety goggles an stuck in my eye. When they extracted it in the ER they figured it was about 2" long. No damage but I still have a red spot from where it entered. Goggles good. Had I not been wearing them I would have lost my eye.

Wear them goggles no matter how silly ya look. You'd look even funnier with a glass eye roll around in there.

My best,
Mike D.

I was wearing eye protection when in a shop putting a hydraulic ram together for a front end loader. We were working on getting the ram lined up to hook it back to the bucket. Dumbass running the controls (owner/boss) didn't know when to stop, the seal on the ram failed, and shit went flying. Goggles saved me from a sh$t load of hydraulic fluid going in my eyes but couldn't stop part of the ram from glancing off of my head and sending me to the ER for stitches. I got looking, prolly could have been killed.

I was warned after that about the guys safety record, needless to say I didn't stay there very long after that.

Yup,

I sympathize with you! I had a piece of good German teener steel stuck in my eye.

I wore goggles, took a shower, washed my hair and two hours later the damn thang fell out of my hair and into my eye

Those eye dremels are scary

Ken

In 1986 I was involved on an explosion at an oil refinery. Got metal frags in both eyes, spent 10 days completely blind, doc says I was lucky to regain sight.
I was wearing ansi safety glasses at the time and they prolly made the difference. now I'm veeeery careful with my eye balls.

Was it at Valero/Ultramar or whatever it was called back then?

Nopers, Valero/Ultramar in wilmington was the safest refinery I ever worked at and I've been in a bunch of em.

The explosion I refered to was at a small independent called Powerine Oil Company in Santa Fe springs.
No big deal, that place blew up on a regular basis.

Imagine a place with very flammable stuff at extremely high temperatures and pressures that is held together with JB weld and duct tape, that was Powerine. I fought at least a dozen serious fires in the 9 years I worked there.
It's been closed since 1995 but the funny thing is, I enjoyed working there more than any other place. The concept of never-ending crisis management brought the 400 or so employees very close together, like a family.
I haven't fought a class C fire since I left that place.

In 10 years of working as a machinist... you would think I would learn. I have had to have my eyeball "SCRAPED" 3 times in the last 5 years... (btw... thats what they do when the piece of metal is to deep to "pluck" out).

Just so the youngn's get the message. I'll throw mine in the mix. Sounds like just about every old guy has had this experience. Was back in my tire and wrenching days. Putting an air gun on a hose. The hose end came off and blew rust and crap from the air lines into my face. Several hours later in ER, I ended up fine.

Not to mention numerous times of looking up under a car and having something fall into my eyes. Muffler jobs were the worst.

Let's just say, no reason not to wear eye protection.

Well, my first eye incident happened in geometry class my junior year of high school. Walked in the class room and was standing behind one of my buddies listening to him describe the wreck he had the night before. Of course, not many people can talk without using thier hands, he just happned to have a compass in his at the time. yup, you guessed it, the compass stuck in my eye when he jerked his hand toward my face. (in his defense, he didn't know i was there) punctured the lens, which had to be removed, and started forming a cataract. I can see now since i got a lens replacement surgery done a few years ago. goggles would've saved my eye, but who wears them to geometry class? oh, and had the dremel thing done a couple of times to remove metal and the surrounding rust, in the same eye!! I wear goggles any time i cut or grind or even think something might fall in my eye.

Got rusty metal in my eye. Damn doc used the same bur I use on teeth on my eye. Not funny when he said " Hold still this won't hurt a bit".

Dave

When the Opthamologist (sp?) sent me a Christmas card, I got the hint.

That eye dremel is just wrong. First they put stinging drops into the eye. Then blue dye. They put you in this head cradle and strap you down.

When the rotating blade scuffs the rust off, it actually takes a small divot!

KT

I wasnt going to respond..

Nothing in my eyes.. ever.. close to 18 years wrenching. Lots of fab work...

I do wear contacts which slows everything down. I get brake cleaner in my eye 1-2 times a month (bounces off the contacts and stings for about 30 seconds)

I have 2-3 different saftey goggles within 10 feet of me at all times (while wrenching)

Chris came running over asking if we had an eye wash.. Normally have saline solution close by.. but he was SOL on Friday.

Glad your OK Chris.

PS. dont sue me.


B

If you only would have started this thread a couple of hours earlier. I was under my car last night at abouy 8, and had a chunk of something go right into my eye. Took me about 3 hours to finally get it out with water. I almost always wear safety glasses when I'm under a car, don't know why I wasn't at the time. Now that I think about it, I went to the ER in Seattle in 1998 with a chunk of rust in my eye. They had me layed out on a gurner with solution washing it out. They had a bum in the gurney next to me drunk and pissing himself. Ahh the smell of the street-people. Wonderful experience.

Bounced lots of stuff off my safety glasses and goggles over the years.

An old friend of mine was not so lucky--he lost an eye in VietNam. He hated the loss, but made the best of it. Had a number of fake ones made, different colors--and a gold eagle and globe (Marine Corps emblem) on a red background to wear with his dress blues.

He used to take his fake out and drop it in his salad at the restaurant . . . "Excuse me miss, can I get another salad, this one seems to have an eye in it." A real scream.

That said, he'd rather have the real deal.

Wear those safety glasses!

Best,

Steve A-