Feb 28 2008 8:34AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
Blog This! using: Blogger.com | LiveJournal |

I’ve visited plenty of jobsites during my tenure as the Building Group’s products editor. And whilst on these visits, the person giving the tour gleefully hands out hard hats and safety goggles. But walking around one job site in particular, I noticed not even half of the crews were wearing safety glasses. I doubt this is uncommon.

Every year, there are more than 800,000 eye injuries on the job, according to Prevent Blindness America. And, close to 36,000 of those will require time off from work. Chemical burns are the most common workplace eye injury, followed by cuts, lacerations and punctures. And guess what industry consistently generates the most eye injuries (drumroll please): construction.

That’s why Prevent Blindness America has designated March as Workplace Eye Health and Safety Awareness Month to encourage workers in all industries to protect their eyes now to ensure healthy vision in the future. “Our vision is something that so many people take for granted until it’s damaged,” said Daniel D. Garrett, senior vice president of Prevent Blindness America. “We hope to encourage employers and employees to make sure that eye protection is on the ‘to do’ list every day.”

Great mission statement. I also dig the pun on “vision.” Nice.

Curiously (and I don’t know how exactly they found this out) Wednesday has more eye injuries than any other day of the week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

PBA also provided these bullet points:

• Safety eyewear must have “ANSI Z87” clearly marked on all glasses or goggles and should be worn at all times whenever eye hazards are present.

• Workers should know where the nearest eye wash station is at their job site and how to use it.

• Employees should have regular eye exams to make sure their vision is adequate to do their jobs safely.

Simple stuff, but very, very useful. It might have been funny when Ralphie almost took his eye out with his Daisy Red Rider BB gun, but I doubt it’s a laughing matter when someone gets a metal splinter in there.