Pub 129 Safety Talks - APWU

Safetv Talks 9-2Do You Take Your Eyes for Granted?Let’s take a quick test. How many basic senses are we endowed with atbirth? Name them. Is it one. . . two. . . four? I’m sure we all agree thatthe answer is five, and these five senses are sight, hearing, taste, touch.and smell.Now, to pose a more serious problem. Suppose you were faced withsacrificing four of these five basic senses. Which one would you want toretain? If you agree with most people, you would choose the sense ofsight. Yet, on so many occasions, how lightly many people treat this mostpriceless possession, How many times have you gotten something in youreye and then remembered your eye protection? You only get so manyfree warnings!The eye is so much like a camera and yet so intangible in value. Acamera consists primarily of a lens, usually rather expensive. The lensgathers light rays, focuses them, and forms an image on a sensitized film,thus mechanically creating a picture.The eye, too, has a very valuable lens. The eye consists of the retina,cornea, and optic nerves. These parts of the human body coordinate theiractivities to transmit impulses to the brain. It is these impulses thatprovide vision, the miracle of color, perception, and the ability to learn.Eighty percent of everything we know comes through the eyes.It is foolish to take our eyes for granted, but we still neglect them. Therewas an instance in which a man lost the sight of one eye when a grindingwheel exploded. This man wore a pair of safety goggles at the time of theaccident, but unfortunately they were on his forehead.The ironic part of this story is that the injured person was an ardentcamera bug, owned many valuable cameras, and the lens of each was wellprotected against the slightest scratch or piece of lint by a leathercap-type cover. Something that could be judged in dollars and cents wasworth protecting, but his own sight was just taken for granted. All ittakes is just one instance of forgetfulness, or the excuse that “this job willonly take a minute” to lose your precious eyesight.Medical science today works near-miracles, but we were given just twoeyes, and science cannot replace them. Let’s keep them and take care ofthem.Pub. 129, October 1990