COMPLETE HEALTH, ENVIRONMENTAL & SAFETY SERVICES (C.H.E.S.S.)
Can’t You See? By Janet L. Keyes, CIH and Carol A. Keyes, CSP
A few years ago, an employee was applying some graphics to a truck. The graphic applicator fell off the truck, hitting a can of lacquer thinner. The thinner splashed into the employee’s eyes. The employee was admitted to the hospital for that injury. The employer was fined $7,650. The employer contested the citation and lost, paying the full penalty amount. How many pairs of safety glasses could you buy for the cost of that injury? Keep in mind that the $7,650 paid to OSHA wasn’t the only expense. The employer’s workers’ comp premium went up for the next three years. The employee lost productive work time. The employer had to spend time dealing with the OSHA inspection and the citations. We don’t know if lawyers’ fees need to be added to that total. Maybe you have extra cash to hand over to regulators and insurers. Maybe you have lots of free time and enjoy dealing with paperwork. Maybe you have more employees than you need. If so, this article may not be for you. But if you’re short on staff, don’t want to pay out more than necessary and want to avoid the paperwork jungle, providing appropriate eye protection to employees and requiring that everyone in the shop wear them seems a cost worth paying. Appropriate eye protection starts with safety glasses, but it doesn’t end there. Ordinary wraparound polycarbonate safety glasses, the type you can buy at Home Depot, cost $8. They’ll protect employees from losing an eye if a grinder explodes or a metal shard goes flying. Safety glasses are really good at protecting eyes from impact hazards, such as a flying piece of metal. If they fit closely to the user’s face, they’ll keep a lot of dust out and will provide some protection against chemical splashes. But they won’t keep out all dust and liquids. And they won’t provide any protection for the rest of the face.
What's Wrong With This Photo?
The eyewash is blocked, and it is missing a cover on one of the nozzles. 20 | June 2022
For dusty work, you can get foam-lined safety glasses for about the same price as plain ones. Grinding? Worried about things striking the face? Add a face shield. Concerned about a splash from a chemical that could blind? Opt for chemical safety goggles and a face shield or a combined face shield/goggles. Don’t think you need that heavy-duty protection? Go look at your detail chemicals. Which are labeled as corrosive? If there is any risk of those splashing onto an employee’s face, some pretty serious eye and face protection is needed. Corrosives can blind employees. And burns from alkaline materials (such as heavy-duty cleaners) or hydrofluoric acid, an ingredient in wheel cleaner, may not be felt immediately. Wheel cleaner contains only three to five percent hydrofluoric acid but burns from concentrations that low can take hours to show up. Wearing goggles is an easy preventive measure. We hope those who weld in your shop wear appropriate welding helmets. What about the workers next to the welder? Or the office person walking through the shop? They’re at risk of an eye burn from welding’s ultraviolet radiation. If you’ve never experienced welder’s flash, ask those who weld what it feels like. The consistent description: ground glass or burning sand in the eye, with the pain appearing hours after exposure. While welders are at most risk, the burn can develop after only a brief unprotected look. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to wear welding helmets. Ordinary un-tinted safety glasses made of polycarbonate will protect those in the area – another argument for requiring safety glasses for everyone in the shop. Safety glasses alone don’t provide adequate protection for the person doing the welding. They don’t protect the rest of the face from ultraviolet radiation or from sparks. Nor do they block the intense visible light from welding. But after experiencing welder’s flash once or twice, most welders are careful about wearing the right eye protection, a welding helmet. Does anyone require prescription lenses? Prescription glasses can be safety glasses – but don’t assume that they are. If employees need the prescription to see, you still want to protect their eyes. You could pay for prescription safety glasses. You could pay for the safety part of the glasses. You could offer them safety glasses that fit over their prescription lenses, but that’s usually awkward and uncomfortable. For some people, safety glasses with reading glass inserts might be suitable. We used to feel some sympathy for people who claimed that safety glasses were uncomfortable or didn’t fit well or disturbed their vision. We don’t buy that argument anymore. Safety glasses have improved in comfort, in style, in fit and in durability. They can have anti-scratch and anti-fog coatings. You can get them in clear, tinted or even mirrored lenses. There are ones for small faces and ones for big faces. And if you want to be fashion-conscious, you can even get them with frames to match nearly any outfit you’ll wear. Even the most expensive pair of safety glasses is a fraction of the cost of an injury.
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