Always wear your safety glasses/goggles.

[kindai]

Alongside many of you, I personally very rarely grab my safety glasses when doing DIY.

This weekend a friend was doing some woodwork, and while the exact specifics of what happened are somewhat unclear at this point, what we do know is whilst using a jigsaw it has failed in a way that caused the blade to break up into several pieces and a piece ended up shooting into his eye.

He is now completely blind in that one eye for good, and has had to have 2 operations to save the sight in his other eye (something to do with how the body reacts to trauma in one eye that can effect both).

Work safe guys!

 

[Rroff]

Ooof - I've always tried to wear eye protection when doing anything other than light tasks.

 

[Martynt74]

Scary stuff indeed! Thats a bizarre event though. No idea how the blade could do that! It's all too often though that i've had bits of wood fly off and whack me in the face and me thinking i'm lucky it missed my eye.

I've actually been using these recently. Since wearing contact lenses i've had some issues with irritation from dust and these help massively. Although i'm at fault for only reaching for them during routing/sanding rather than using jigsaws/table saws.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-c...nC97qbuxJ6FX-MKwtARoCWvYQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[cheesyboy]

damn, sounds bad.

I do tend to reach for the goggles, but am not as strict on it as I probably should be. TBH, after this post I'll redouble my efforts!

 

[Rroff]

Scary stuff indeed! Thats a bizarre event though. No idea how the blade could do that! It's all too often though that i've had bits of wood fly off and whack me in the face and me thinking i'm lucky it missed my eye.

I've actually been using these recently. Since wearing contact lenses i've had some issues with irritation from dust and these help massively. Although i'm at fault for only reaching for them during routing/sanding rather than using jigsaws/table saws.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-c...nC97qbuxJ6FX-MKwtARoCWvYQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Really unlucky to permanently lose sight - I know of 1-2 incidents similar of temporary sight impact which is one of the reasons I make an effort. I've got something similar to what you linked to that is really good but tend to use more basic safety specs on a more general basis as they are more convenient.

 

[SMN]

I had a drill bit fail once and fly about an inch past my cheek, that was pretty scary. Since then I wear the gogg's.

 

[Wizzfizz]

That's unlucky for your friend and life changing. The amount of accidents from DIY though because of lack of PPE must be astonishing. I personally always use any PPE when doing DIY tasks. This goes for even mowing the grass and i'm sure a lot of people never think about doing so.

 

[TNA]

Quickly orders a pair...

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[tom_e]

I have been known to stick one of my old bike helmets on when I've not been able to find my safety glasses, always gets a "what are you doing now " from whoever is in the house at the time

 

[psd99]

ouch that's terrible!

I actually tend to wear goggles especially when working with electrical saws or even with my hedge trimmer!

drilling not too much though, from now on I will start to do so. sometimes I've had bit of wood smash into my glasses, that's scary

thanks for sharing

 

[psd99]

I always have a cap on too!

 

[Hotwired]

Probably bad practice that I crutch on the default protection of corrective glasses.

Not as bad as it sounds by the way, glasses haven't been real glass for ages now but still not as protective as real goggles.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Probably bad practice that I crutch on the default protection of corrective glasses.

Not as bad as it sounds by the way, glasses haven't been real glass for ages now but still not as protective as real goggles.

I’m guilty of this as well if I’m just drilling the one hole for a rawl plug. For anything else, the wraparound safety glasses that fit over the top of my varifocals come out.

Because I want to protect both my eyes and my expensive specs.


The problem with even laminated corrective lens is they only offer a small area of protection and while the lens may not crack due to impact, you may have fragments spalling off the rear of the lens into the eye.

 

[gord]

That's unlucky for your friend and life changing. The amount of accidents from DIY though because of lack of PPE must be astonishing. I personally always use any PPE when doing DIY tasks. This goes for even mowing the grass and i'm sure a lot of people never think about doing so.

I count myself lucky as I'm pretty sure that I got a plastic splinter in my eye from using an edge strimmer without any glasses/goggles. That was 2 weeks of thinking I had eye strain and itching, followed by a trip to the opticians and being told to go to hospital immediately, where they rushed me through and the lead optometrist got it out with a needle. It was right in the center of my eye..

 

[tom_e]

Not DIY related but I was very lucky a couple of years ago.
I was riding down the M6 with my visor up behind a metal recycling lorry, which it turns out was spewing out small slivers of metal. I ended up with one in the eye and somehow very luckily it managed to lodge itself by my tear duct and I made it the 30 miles home resisting the urge to rub my eye and then managed to fish it out, if I'd just idly rubbed my eye that little razor probably would have done me some serious damage.

 

[jpaul]

even with hand tools can get unexpected(predictable?) breakages ... last week, cutting a 750u polycarbonate sheet with a scalpel the blade sheared, and pinged off,
fortunately sideways.
...lot of energy ... took a while to find the point to see failure .. morton scalpel

 

[Mark A]

You should also wear ear defenders and a dust mask, but its a lot of faff to keep putting all that on every time you need to make a cut. You only get one pair of eyes though, so probably a good idea to make the effort to wear them. I have been using jigsaws daily for 15-20 years and never seen a blade break like that. I'm guessing it was a cheap blade that has been hardened wrong as the Bosch blades I use will bend, rather than break.

 

[Street]

I learned my lesson a few years ago while chopping some stone based cladding with a circular saw. A tiny splinter pinged off and went straight in my eye. I ended up having to go to A&E, where, luckily it was fairly easy to get out with no lasting damage. Always wear the goggles now while using the power tools!

 

[wolfie138]

lass I used to know was doing stuff in her kitchen; tore a strip of baking foil off the roll and the end flicked around and sliced her eye. was unbelievably lucky, it barely licked the eye surface so there was nothing that didn't heal.