Eye Protection: How to Work Safely in the Shop

To protect yourself from injuries, you need to wear personal protective equipment (PPE), dress appropriately, work professionally, and correctly handle tools and equipment. PPE are items such as safety glasses, uniforms, and safety boots or shoes that help protect you while working in the shop.

Your eyes can become infected or permanently damaged by many things in a shop. Consider the following:

• Dirt and sharp bits of rust can easily fall into your eyes while you are working under a vehicle.
• Some procedures, such as grinding, release tiny particles of metal and dust, which are thrown off at very high speeds. These particles can easily get into your eyes, scratching or cutting them.
• Pressurized gases and liquids escaping a ruptured hose or loose hose fitting can spray into your eyes and cause blindness.

To be safe, you should wear suitable eye protection whenever you are working in the shop. In most shops, this is not an option—you must wear eye protection. There are many types of eye protection available (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Various types of eye protection: safety (splash) goggles, face shield, and safety glasses.

Safety glasses have lenses made of shatter-resistant safety glass, plastic or polycarbonate. They should also offer side protection. Regular prescription glasses do not offer sufficient protection and, should not be worn as a substitute for safety glasses. Prescription glasses can be made with polycarbonate lenses and can be worn as safety glass if they are rated ANSI Z87 and have side shields fixed to the frame.

During some procedures you should wear additional eye protection. For example, when you are working around air-conditioning systems, you should wear splash goggles and, when using a bench grinder or cleaning parts with a pressurized spray, you should wear a face shield. The face shield will also protect the rest of your face.

Figure 2. An eye wash station.

Eye First Aid
If chemicals such as battery acid, fuel, or solvents get into your eyes, flush them immediately and continuously with clean water. Have someone call a doctor and get medical help immediately. Many shops have eye wash stations or safety showers (Figure 2) that should be used whenever you or someone else has been sprayed or splashed with a chemical.