The Reality Of Workplace Eye Injury

By Joe B. Russell

Almost 2,000 workers, in the United States alone, suffer from workplace eye injury per day. You read that right... 2,000 workplace eye injuries PER DAY.

Around 700 of these daily injuries require emergency care. Around 5% of them incapacitate the victim from doing work for at least a day.

Around 60% of workplace eye injuries are caused by small particles that manage to strike the eye. Around 30% is caused by contact with chemicals that are harmful to the eyes.

Almost 2% of these workplace eye injuries cause permanent blindness.

Though most workplace eye injury is physically caused, a number of them can be attributed to harmful substances that come in contact with the eyes. Worse, these harmful substances can cause other diseases detrimental to the victim. Such disease can be something as trivial as minor conjunctivitis or temporary soreness, or something quite serious as hepatitis or a case of avian flu.

Hence, the statistics above do not really represent the total extent of eye-related injuries. They just point to actual workplace eye injuries which can immediately be determined.

Nonetheless, the statistics above deliver some grave news.

These alarming statistics have given birth to calls for stricter measures to make eye protection mandatory in industries that are plagued by hazards to the most important of the body's senses. Eyeglasses, goggles, face masks, respirators and the likes should be made available for those engaged in industrial undertakings, highly technical work, health care, janitorial jobs, laboratory work and animal handling.

Such eye protection should satisfy the following requisites, least they bring more problems than solutions:

• They should be comfortable to wear and in no way should they impair the use of the wearer's other faculties.

• They should not hinder the wearer's peripheral vision.

• The protection they will provide should be commensurate to the danger level that the hazard poses.

• They should be adjustable so that they can easily accommodate multiple wearers or size changes that a particular wearer may exhibit.

• They should be made of industrially safe materials.

• A highly effective anti fog product such as Fogtech should be included as an added safety measure

Workplace eye injury is one of the most common work-related accidents in this day and age. As such, employers should really make it a point to consider and implement necessary precautions to minimize, if not totally prevent, the happening of such disasters.

The statistics presented at the start of this piece are warning signals.

They tell us that eye injuries are real, and they happen so frequently. They tell us that there are many dangers to our eyes and that utmost care should always, always be observed. They remind us of the old adage, that an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure, and they emphasize the importance of eye protection in many industries.

Joe Russell is the President/CEO of http://www.iatcenterprises.com and http://www.fogtech.ca IATC is a distributor and retailer of Fogtech and WileyX protetcive eyewear as well offering other products and accessories for extreme sports applications and industrial safety.

IATC Enterprises also provides marketing consulting as well other business services to small, medium or large companies and corporations.

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