Got a few days off work, finally able to sort of open my left eye.

[timex69]

Hey guys,
Just thought id share my latest hospital visit experience with you all. I'm a truck and transport tech at an international dealer here in Canada and due to the cold weather we've been getting all kinds of service calls for brakes wont release, air lines froze etc. So a call comes and i grab a jug of methyl hydrate, a tiger torch and a few other tools and out the door i go. When I get on site I started pouring the methyl into the air line and the driver hit the brake spraying the methyl into both eyes. Called my g/f who was close by and she took me to the hospital where my eye was frozen, an "eye hat" put in and flushed with a gallon of saleen for the next 4 hours. All I can say is what a feeling, cant see and cant breath cause of the alcohol fumes.

Anyone else have any eye injuries?

[JasonB]

thats terrible! Im sorry for that, that is honestly scary to think about an injury like that! What do they say about getting your sight back?

I had brake fluid drip directly into my eye while working on my car one time, that burned pretty good lol

[Scootertrash]

Bummer!! Make sure to bring your safety glasses next time. I hate the friggin things myself, but they've saved me quite a few times. I''m to the point where I try to force myself to put them on when I'm wrenching at home.

[timex69]

Doc said my eyesight will return to normal or next to normal in a few days. The methanol dried out my eyeball so even room tempature air bothers it so it keeps trying to close. When it happend it was -39C with the windchill and my breath fogged up my glasses so i removed them. Next thing you know Im blind in one eye. Gonna have to look into some eyewear that holds up better then the glasses were provided with to work in the shop.

[dustrunner]

good luck to you and a speedy recovery.. ive had metal ground out of my eyes, gas and oil in them but it sounds like you had it worse than that.....take care

[Jeff B]

Of all the evil sh1t I've had in my eyes I'd have to say the worst was a chunk of tool steel. I was using a concrete pilot bit in a rotary hammer to take a tiled floor out of a suite we were reno-ing, and a chunk of what I thought was grout zapped straight into my eyeball. I thought no bigs, I'll just get someone to scope it out, I'll rinse it, and get back at'er. No one could see squat in there, rinsing did s.f.a. and it really was too aggravated to close. So, I got the GC to give me a lift to the walk in to get a quack to rinse it. She said it was steel and picked at it for a while, and couldn't do a darn thing. Sent me to an eye specialist, who picked at it for a while, said it was useless and to go to the hospital. So I tried to get myself there with my left eye patched in a truck that was missing the drivers side mirror. Thankfully my gf was able to drive me from her place. So I get to the hospital and they rush me into emerg. whilst giving me the gears for not having been more expedient in my travel. Wheeling me into the OR the doctor says "this is pretty simple surgery, it can take five minutes, it can take half hour." Huge jinx right there. Two smegging hours later, they call in another eye surgeon, and he eventually extracts the offending chunk with a magnet. Ever had a really deep sliver that just twinged right up your spine when you ran a fingernail over it? Imagine that in your eye. That's what every little pick at the chunk felt like. At one point I heard the anesthetist say "he'll be coming up any minute" So I said "I'm already up" which probably sounded like "mur gurfldy bup." After that I got to watch the stitches going in to my eye with the eye into which the stitches were going. I describe it as some folk would describe their alien abduction: I saw a weird light, and odd metal instruments. Which is true, because that was all I could see. It wasn't as painful as you would imagine, but fighting down the panic, which at that point had almost taken on a physical entity, was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life. I spent four days in the hospital recovering from the ordeal, and a further two weeks patched. Needless to say I learned somewhat of a lesson, my GC's insurance went up, and I got the coolest safety goggles I've ever seen. My sight in my left eye is still not normal, and I doubt it'll ever come back %100.

I wish you a speedy and complete recovery Brother. Eye trauma is not at all fun.

[kb0nly]

Figures you take off the fogged up glasses then he hits the brakes.... Ugh...

I wear glasses full time, dang near blind without them, i have OSHA pairs with side shields, etc... But they all fog up and cause issues with the cold winter here. What i found that works good is these anti-fog lens wipes, usually you have to treat with a wipe while cleaning them a few times a week, basically as they get dirty grab a wipe and wipe em down and the chemicals in the wipe clean the lens and apply an anti-fog stuff to them. Its not a perfect solution, but i can tell you it works.

I spent the big bucks on a set of OSHA safety glasses, prescription, side shields, impact lenses, and has an oleophobic and anti fog coating that won't even let fingerprints stay on the lens, they don't fog up either! I would imagine you could find non prescription ones with the same coating.

At least your vision will come back, a close call like that is a mind changer. I had them to.

[Scootertrash]

If you don't mind my asking, what'd them OSHA glasses cost ya?

[kb0nly]

The prescription ones set me back just about $240 with eye exam, so a little less without the exam. They were not cheap, but how cheap is an eye?

[timex69]

I'm looking into a set of those ohsa glasses as we speak. $240 is about a day and a half's work for me compared to 2 hospital visits and a optometrist visit I believe that is a small price to pay.

[rdlsz24]

That sucks man, I'm wishing you a speedy recovery.

Worse I ever had was when I accidentally put the enzyme cleaner stuff for contacts directly in my eye. I thought it was saline. My eye instantly snapped shut and I could barely pry it open with my fingers. I went to bed and my eye was just burning and watering all night. The next morning I decided I should go to the ER and they also did one of those saline rinses for a while. Turns out I had flash burn on my cornea. They gave me some antibiotic goo I had to put in there for a few days and after that it went back to normal. Supposedly the eye is the fastest healing tissue in the human body.

Rob

[atc007]

Worst I had was a splinter of wood directly into my eye. I was splitting wood,and that night after milking,my eye lid was bothering the crap out of me. I looked and there was this perfect groove rubbed out of it! The splinter was cutting my lid as it opened and shut. The Doc had me lay on my side,stare at a place on the wall,and dug it out with a pin. Antibiotics and it was good to go. Good luck on yours !

[Slingblade]

I've been having pieces of metal picked out of my eye since I was 16. I will now wear safety glasses when grinding, especially when laying under a car. That has cost me 2 trips, I'm a slow learner.

And rdlsz, I've done that bit with the enzyme cleaner before, too. I rinsed a contact with it and put it in my eye. I stomped that bottle, made up some new cuss-words, yah, it was bad.

Glad you'll be getting your site back. One thing about the eyes, even though they can cause the most pain, they heal quickly.

Hope all goes well.