The Camaro Club (UK)

I'm sure we are all pretty good at taking safety measures working on our cars / projects, every now and then we can get comfortable or rush something and that's when we get bitten. Often a sobering reminder helps keep safety at they top of our list so that we can have the means to continue working away...

Yesterday i was doing some cleaning on an inner fender with a wire cup brush on an angle grinder. I have used this method for the last couple of years and always wear safety glasses, i even have 2 pairs incase i can't find one in the mess. I hit a bit which kicked up some dust, so i went to find a dust mask. In between doing so, i took off the goggles but thought i had put them back on. After about 10 seconds of having the angle grinder back on, a piece of wire brush detached itself, bounced off the fender and directly into my eyeball. This was not pleasant. I started panicking but managed to stay calm and think about what i needed to do. No one was home, so i managed to navigate into the house, and find a pair of tweasers. The piece of metal on these things are about 1 inch long and zig zagged. It was at an angle laying against my eye so i was trying to fight my natural reaction to blink. I got myself infront of the mirror and got the tweesers on it and started to pull. Nothing happened at first so i closed my eyelids as far as i could, used my fingers hold my eyeball and pull again. After about the longest 2 seconds in the world, it managed to come out. My vision had gone hazey and fish eyed - imagine having a go-pro camera as an eye. Luckily no blood or oozing fluids.

I called a couple of mates but they weren't picking up. There's a hospital near me that is a specialist eye clinic for the area so wanted to get there and see if there were any issues / precaution etc. Couldn't drive as my vision was off so couldn't really judge distances. I took a long shower (was covered in dirt from working as always)! After about an hour or so i finally get a call back from a mate. The eye clinic closes on Saturdays at 12, so we talked for a bit and by now my vision was a bit better - less hazey, but couldn't focus properly and still a bit fish eyed.

Having slept on it, it's MUCH better already. Still a bit hazy but the dark spots seem to have gone and the fish eye appears to be gone. No visible damage looking in the mirror today.

Thought i'd share this rather unfun experience as the devil is in the detail as they say, and it will get you the moment you don't pay attention. A sober reminder of how delicate we are and how quickly and easily things can go wrong. Take care people!!

Ray

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Sod´s law says flying crap will always find an eyeball.
As an apprentice we had to look at all sorts of dreadful industrial injuries.

A long time ago I was in my father´s garage and knew pretty much where everything was.
At the workbench I reached up to the shelf to retrieve something.
I managed to knock a jam jar with paint brushes in it, also thinners.
As I knocked it I thought this is´nt what I need and looked up.
Got the whole lot right in the face.
Luckily the kitchen door was right behind me and I found my way to the sink quickly.
I put my eye right under the cold water tap and turned it on full blast.
I kept my eyes closed on the way to the hospital and they did a clean up with various coloured liquids.

I reckon you should still visit the doctor and have the wound looked at.

Hope you're all right now.. also would recommend just getting it checked out, as that bit of wire will have been rusty/oily/filthy too..

More importantly......... did you get much done on the car ??

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“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

Thinner in the eye? Ouch that must have been horrible! Glad you had someone there to take you straight to hospital. I had got a few mini droplets in my eye once when cleaning the spray gun with one of those little pipe cleaners. Was ok after a couple of minutes of washing under the sink, nowhere near as bad as a whole splash

I will go to the eye clinic tomorrow as you guys recommend. Seems pretty good now, just a slight haze - like watching those early 90's cheap daytime TV shows where they smeared a touch of vaseline on the lens.

And yes Stu - i did get some more work done In fact that night i was pretty pissed off that i couldn't do what i had planned, so did a couple of small easy jobs for a couple of hours. Then today back at it in full swing. Though, i woke up quite late, was pretty tired i think from traumatising experience, so didn't get everything done as planned. Prepping the new door so that i can paint the inner half in order to get the hinges on and have it on the car by the end of the week (planned to have it painted today but due to that hiccup i couldn't). Had rust here and there (have pics, will post soon) so had to get rid of that. Also one of the stud moldings had broken off, so at some stage someone thought the solution was to drill a 1/4" hole and use a but and bolt combo, so had to delete that hole. Plus the skin had the usual waves that needed straightening. Also prepping the fenders to get them ready to go on, always good doing 2 things as once apparently

Cheers for now,

Ray

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Hi Ray did you go get your eye checked out :?:I got a bit of steel in my eye i cleaned it out several times and it didn,t feel to bad after a few hours i looked in my eye the best i could and it looked ok .The next day it felt a bit sore (was expected )my daughter came over and looked in my eye ,and said she could see something in it .So of i went to hospital (eye section ) and they said i had rust in my eye under a layer of newly formed skin( or what ever it is )so i got an anesthetic injection in my eye ball ,then scraped the rust off because they couldnt get it all out i had to go back for round two great fun not .So the moral of the story is GET YOUR EYES SORTED AS SOON AS POSS NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK ! .After all you only have two of them Cheers Neil

Hi Neil,

Ouch, rust in the eye? Did you not etch prime it first lol. Wow that sounds pretty bad having an injection in your eye and having stuff scraped out... twice! The first time is bad enough Glad that they were able to sort it though and you don't have any issues with it now.

I was at the eye clinic this afternoon and they put in some drops to dilate my pupil - i looked stoned lol. Then examined in microscope style. The doc said he could see the entry wound but there was nothing in there which was reassuring and a relief. He said there would be scar tissue but it shouldn't affect my vision. Did an eye test and was able to see well so that was good too. Prescribed 2x eye drops - one to take 3 times a day which contains antibiotic, then another one to take when going to bed, which is more of a gel to help keep it moisturised overnight. It was kinda funny, i showed the nurse the piece of metal and she said, oh ok so it hit your eye then fell out. I said no, it stayed there and i had to tweaser it out. She said ohhhhh in a slightly different tone this time.

I found a pic of parts of the eye http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesi ... uch2.shtml
The bit the metal went into was the first layer (conjuctiva) and also the cornea.

Very glad to be seeing normally again!

Thanks,

Ray

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Ouch!
Glad things are more or less ok.
Eye wounds make me shiver - as a kid I managed to scratch my retina with a stone after some amazing (when you're 12) BMX manoeuvres on a dirt track near the house.
I've also managed to zap myself in the eye with a laser - like a proper bench mounted physics lab type thing, not a keyring pointer.
End result is my eyesight's shocking without specs and one's worse than the other.
Did I mention I do photography?

But yeah - it's worth wearing the right gear. You never know.

Edit: Just saw this on jalopnik -