Metal flakes in the eye, I am okay as is my eye.

monkeylove

monkeylove

Been here much more than a while
Location
Roslyn, Pa.
Had a cutoff wheel hit something it wasn't supposed to and showered my face with steel sparks. Had my safety glasses on but 3 pieces still managed to find my eye. Eye doctor removed them all but I will be bloodshot and weepy eyed in my left eye for a few days. Just a reminder that you just can't protect yourself 100% from everything but that you should try to 100% of the time. It would have been much worse if I had not had eye protection on at all. Stay safe, work smart.
 
Shit dude.. you most likley walked away lucky on that one.. I think we've all had a few close calls with this type of thing.. When i first got started in this trade, i had to go in a few times for wood chips i couldn't get out. Knock on wood, i now have a half decent technique i use directly on site to get stuff out. (Just a truck mirror & makeup/mascara pointed q-tips to dig debris out. I'd have to believe flying metal would be allot harder to find or remove though.

I will say this.. noticed the cheaper harbor freight wheels/disks/wire wheels will throw a ton of debris at me vs higher quality ones. I've also noticed i can't just use any old pair of glasses for protection & be able to relax my eyes while cutting metal or wood as I've had exactly what happened to you, happen to me while wearing glasses. This is because alot of glasses leave a big opening underneath the bottom of the lense. To prevent this, i will test fit the glasses to my face & I'll only buy glasses that will touch the tops of my cheek/cheek bones without haven't to squint very hard. They're even better for me if they touch without doing any squinting. Knock on wood again.. since I've adopted that standard, I've not had anything get past. I know it sounds silly, but try it out.

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Here’s the $225 trick for getting things out of your eye that don’t require surgery, q-tip and the real oily eye drops like Systane. Saturate the q-tip, grasp upper(or lower) eyelashes and run the qtip across the inside of the lid. Gently. This works when you’ve got a little chunk of wood chip stuck on the eyelid. It doesn’t hurt as much as you think it will. This is what my eye doctor did to remove debris from my eye, now I keep the necessary items in the truck and it has been helpful. Doesn’t sound like it would have done any good in monkeyloves situation but it’s saved me some time and money since I learned it.
 
Beware those damned composite cut off discs! As a former auto mechanic and current construction worker I have seen several catastrophic failures of the wheel itself, particularly in the 90s before wheel safety improved.
As Jimmycrackcorn said avoid the cheap wheels as they are a LOT more likely to loose chunks.
And as monkeylove say a full face shield, preferably with form fitting safety glasses inside are best.
Last but not least keep out of the direct line of fire (Face in line with wheel) when you can, in case of catastrophic wheel failure, particularly when cutting speeds exceed 10k rpm.
 
I've nearly always use a welding helmet with clear glass or a full face shield. Its too easy to get in the groove of things, and spray your face in sparks/metal.
 
The grind mode on the new helmet is a nice feature. I was fabricating all and it was nice to just hit the switch and not have to keep flipping it up or taking it off entirely. Now I just need to get a cheater lens for it and a headlamp.
 
monkeylove said:
The grind mode on the new helmet is a nice feature. I was fabricating all and it was nice to just hit the switch and not have to keep flipping it up or taking it off entirely. Now I just need to get a cheater lens for it and a headlamp.
Click to expand...
I have yet to use a auto hood. Haven’t really been in the shop in a while.
 
Jimmycrackcorn said:
Shit dude.. you most likley walked away lucky on that one.. I think we've all had a few close calls with this type of thing.. When i first got started in this trade, i had to go in a few times for wood chips i couldn't get out. Knock on wood, i now have a half decent technique i use directly on site to get stuff out. (Just a truck mirror & makeup/mascara pointed q-tips to dig debris out. I'd have to believe flying metal would be allot harder to find or remove though.

I will say this.. noticed the cheaper harbor freight wheels/disks/wire wheels will throw a ton of debris at me vs higher quality ones. I've also noticed i can't just use any old pair of glasses for protection & be able to relax my eyes while cutting metal or wood as I've had exactly what happened to you, happen to me while wearing glasses. This is because alot of glasses leave a big opening underneath the bottom of the lense. To prevent this, i will test fit the glasses to my face & I'll only buy glasses that will touch the tops of my cheek/cheek bones without haven't to squint very hard. They're even better for me if they touch without doing any squinting. Knock on wood again.. since I've adopted that standard, I've not had anything get past. I know it sounds silly, but try it out.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

This should work, but my last construction job I had two incidents in a week where the debris got past between my glasses and my cheek they were adjacent to - we measured the gap and it was approximately 1.5mm or 0.060in. Can't get too much closer than that but ricochet'd off the cheek near the close contact point of the glasses (amazingly just at that point) and bounced into my eye...

I will wear face shield from now on, or if none available ensure I am directly facing the work (if there is other obstructions for debris to bounce off I will find a mask) as its not worth the risk.
 
chiselbit said:
Here’s the $225 trick for getting things out of your eye that don’t require surgery, q-tip and the real oily eye drops like Systane. Saturate the q-tip, grasp upper(or lower) eyelashes and run the qtip across the inside of the lid. Gently. This works when you’ve got a little chunk of wood chip stuck on the eyelid. It doesn’t hurt as much as you think it will. This is what my eye doctor did to remove debris from my eye, now I keep the necessary items in the truck and it has been helpful. Doesn’t sound like it would have done any good in monkeyloves situation but it’s saved me some time and money since I learned it.
Click to expand...

AT YOUR OWN RISK:

Another welders trick if you get something embedded in the surface of eye and too far from hospital (that is small and not deeply penetrating! - no nails or large splinters or anything like that... is to get a new monetary note, or similar, and roll it into a cylinder like a cigarette and locate it centred over the debris and 'poke' the eye gently with it. The low impact poke will cause the lid to push the cylinder past the debris and scrape it off the eye, or if a tiny splinter even drag it out.

If deeply penetrating this doesnt work as deep penetrating object removal can allow eye fluids to drain out with serious consequences.
 
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