No this isn't a thread about forging an eye from iron...but ending up with iron in your eye.

I was busy making Christmas presents this weekend. I did have safetly glasses and a dust mask on. However, I ended up with a sliver of iron in my cornia.

I irrigated the eye several times over the weekend, but my eye was pretty much swelled shut this morning.

I went to the walk-in clinic this morning and the nurse practioner had to use a 25 gauge needle to scrape the top of my eye to remove the piece of iron.

She said I will end up with a "rust ring" in my eye. I wondered how many on here have ever heard or have a rust ring in your eye?

I looked like a pirate all day. Had to go into Costco to get my perscription filled for antibiotic eye drops with a big old patch on my eye. My sight is still foggy, but she said that will clear up...lord I hope so!

Remember to wear your safetly gear!

Merry Christmas,

John

John,
Glad to hear things will clean up in time. I had a small sliver in one of my eyes a while back and was lucky enough to be able to remove it myself with a super strong magnet. I could actually feel when it was gone.

Glad they got it out and that you are on the mend. I will let absolutely NO ONE in my shop without eye protection! I have a couple of spares just in case. And yes I have seen the rust ring...Praise GOD not on me but on others I have worked with in past.

John,
Glad to hear things will clean up in time. I had a small sliver in one of my eyes a while back and was lucky enough to be able to remove it myself with a super strong magnet. I could actually feel when it was gone.

Encourages me to always keep a good magnet on hand, hah

Glad you made it through in one piece John!

John, Should be alright. Did the same thing same way about 35yrs ago. Had another welder friend did the magnet thing and ended up with a nasty infection. I'll stick with the pros.
Ken.

Just goes to show no matter how much safety gear you have on, accidents can still happen, as Grants little quote said "safety is not a device but an attitude" or something to that effect. I have been forging for 29 years now and the worst injuries I have had have all been when I was wearing safety gear, (ie a large piece of scale flew off a job hit my fore head fell down into my glasses, I recieved bad burns to my lower eye lid as I could not get my glasses off quick enough. Yet the hospital out patients doctor said "If you had been wearing safety glasses this would not have happened"). What I'm getting at is that even though you may have on a full metal battle jacket, you can still get hurt, it is you and your approach to the job that is the deciding factor.
Phil

I've always went to an eye doctor even if it means a weekend extra charge for emergency - had I waited i'd have lost some eyesight. Definately nothing to mess with - if it hurts or you know for sure something is in there.... get in to have it checked. Don't play tough guy and wait a day or 2. If there is metal in your eye, it's doing damage as time goes by - more time, more damage. - JK

I always wear safety glasses yet I have sometimes been regarded as a bit of a pest at my eye surgeons office. I have several of those rust rings but they seem to fade over the years (my eyes keep needing stronger glasses though). What can you do? I have worn face shields too and they do help but are SOO uncomfortable! I am getting old enough to be glad that I used my eyes and happy that I was lucky and careful enough to keep them working reasonably well all these years. A tiny piece of scale sneaked up under the lenses just a couple of weeks ago and sizzled out in my eye but only minor discomfort resulted. My glasses are pitted with the spatter of hot scale though and I hate to think what my eyes would be like without the glasses!

I was using the angle grinder with a cut-off wheel and got a sliver of metal in the eye. I ended up with a rust spot. had safety glasses on but now wear those and a face shield.

I have had a piece of metal inmy eye and went a couple of days. Got it out and had a rust ring and the eye doc I went to drilled out the rust ring, thought it wasn't deep and it healed fine with no discoloration.

The good news is that rust rings dissipate over time.Soon you won`t even know it`s there.
At least they didn`t have to drill or use a hypo needle like an ice cream scoop to dig the FOD out.Been there,done that.

I also have spare eye protection and ear plugs available for anyone in the general vicinity of where I`m working.They either put them on or the work stops till they leave.
I`ve always been very conscious and careful about my eyes.I became more careful about other`s eyes after an industrial accident that cost a co-worker an eye.
One of the machinists in the plant had come to the maintenance area to look at an assembly we had pulled from a press.We were in the process of driving a large gear off a shaft and he needed to make a new shaft so we could get the press up and running again.
He took his safety glasses off and was cleaning them while standing about 10 feet away when a bad hit from the sledge bounced off the shaft and hit the edge of the gear(cast of course) and took a small bit of one tooth out.The piece lodged deep in Al`s eye,too deep to retrieve so he lost the eye.He was in the process of putting his cleaned glasses back on when it happened.Since then I`m much more aware of what other folks around me are doing and where they are in relation to the work.

Fourteen years working military emergency rooms, I am familiar with rust rings in eyes, along with ice picks, wood slivers, and various other objects that dont belong anywhere in the bady let alone the eye.

Never heard of rust rings before. I got a sliver in my eye while using an angle grinder and like a lot of others that have posted I had goggles on, which has to make me wonder about there effectivness. I use a full face mask now.

Been there done that. That drill the doctor uses really freaked me out. Made me wish I could close my eye without closing my eye, thats for sure.

Everyone is talking about the times the safety equipment did not stop an eye injury. I do not hear any of those same people say they took it off and never used it again. Instead you hear them telling of doubling up on eye protection with glasses AND shields.

Accidents are always going to happen, personal safety is your taking the time to protect you, and keep your injuries to a minimum. Now look at the lenses of your safety glasses and notice all the pits, scratches, and junk in the lens. Without those glasses, it would be in your face.

Let us ponder this for a moment, do you prefer a rust ring in a working eye or a patch and no eye? The choice is yours, so please make the right one for you.

I couldn't focus my eye at all this morning so I went to a real eye Dr. He used the dremel like tool to drill out the rust and then put a contact in over the crater he created. Now I have antibiotic drops and steroid drops, and another date with the eye Dr. on Christmas Eve.

He thinks it will be okay, but you only get two eyes and there aren't spares out there. So I will go back and see what he says.

All in all, just another lesson that you can't be too carefull.

Merry Christmas everyone,

John

Hi Double Y. Glad to hear that you are on the road to recovery. The rust ring sounds like a real drag. How did you get the piece in your eye? Forging or grinding? I have found that grinding is much riskier, especially on a machine with no guards. The two most dangerous grinders I have used are straight die grinders and old fashioned hand crank grinders. I don't like to use these machines without a face shield plus safety glasses.

These are good sound words.

Just remember, its not only the flying debris coming off of what is worked, but the blades and discs themselves can fly too.

Worst part is when they put your head in the clamp then watching that giant piece
of steel get closer and closer.
Ken

Actually, my least favorite part was having the eye doc moving that drill in and telling me to keep my eye still and open, yeah right! Finally, I focused on the filament of the light and was able to be still long enough for him to get it out. Dumb me, went and got the hood out of the truck but figured the regular glasses would be sufficient. Won't do that again! Glad you are on the mend, Double Y.

I recall two separate times I had objects in my eye that caused me to seek medical help.
Both times I was wearing safety glasses but ain't it funny how flying objects can behave like a mojor league slider and arc right past the glasses...
Both times were at Pearl Harbor back in my jarhead days. First I was busting an old fencepost out of its base with a spudbar on the softball field and got a tiny piece of concrete not much bigger than a grain of sand but it felt like I had a grapefruit in there.
Got to the sickbay and the doc took two long woooden handled Q-tips, dipped one in some kind of adhesive, slapped it onto my eyelid and rolled it back like a sardine can lid then commenced to fishing around with the other one. Voila! He got it right away. Gotta love those corpsmen!!!
Couple months later me and another guy were tasked with welding up a bar-b-que for some bigshot colonel's party coming up (NEVER volunteer...) and strike two, back to sickbay.
Same doc, same procedure but after twenty minutes or so I had enough. "I think you got it Doc"... (he hadn't) "You sure"? "Yup, thanks doc"...
I went back to the barracks on one headlight and popped off the back cover of my stereo speaker cabinet, pried my eyelid open with my fingers and stuck my face right up to the big woofer magnet. Tick! I heard it hit and knew it was finally and luckily gone.
I don't recomend walking out of the E.R. before you're fixed up and yes it was stupid of me to do so and yes I was just plain lucky the magnet thing worked. ;)

I have been a full time smith for about 5 years or so. I wear safety glasses all the time and have still needed to get stuff removed from my eye about 6 or 7 times. I have several "rust rings" and corneal scars. The best thing to do is if you get something in your eye, GET MEDICAL ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY. I waited a couple of times and then they had to take a dremel style tool and grind out the metal in my eye.Apparently your eye heals very quickly, so if you wait a new layer grows over whatever is in your eye necessitating the dremel tool. After they grind your eye it is very uncomfortable. The best safety glasses that I have found are the ones that look like ski goggles-they fit your face very well. They do fog up, but I have several pairs and just swap them when fogging occurs.
Take care,
Mark Emig

I've gotten safety glasses for my regular glasses and so wear then all the time I am awake---even swimming!

Just looking at the scrapes, chips, burns, overspray, etc on them makes me quite happy to be wearing them; especially as a lot of times the damage didn't occur in the shop but in the yard, kitchen, etc.

Folks keep trying to talk me into laisik or contacts and I just hand them my glasses and ask them to explain how it would prevent the damage there.

I do have a diskdrive "scary powerful" magnet to do at home emergency fishing as it's a bit of a drive to an ER where I am at and I would prefer to do it with the metal *out* rather than scratching around during the trip.

This is precisely the reason that I have gone from wearing safety glasses to wearing goggles, as I found that no matter how close fitting the glasses were, I'd still feel bits getting underneath and into my eyes, especially while grinding. I found that like some previous posts here, that the ski goggle types work best, my current favourites are made by UVEX and are extremely comfortable, I too have a few pairs around my workshop.