Weekly Toolbox Talk: Eyes Are Priceless

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Let’s take a quick test. How many basic senses do we have at birth? Name them. Is it one…. two…. four? I’m sure we all agree the answer is FIVE. These five senses are SIGHT, HEARING, TASTE, TOUCH and SMELL.

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If you were faced with sacrificing four of these five basic senses, which ones would you keep? Most people would keep their sense of SIGHT. Yet on so many occasions, we treat this most priceless possession too lightly. The value of our sight cannot be measured.

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The eye is like a camera. The eye also has a lens. The eye consists of the retina, iris, cornea and optic nerves. These parts of the human body, in an almost supernatural way, coordinate their activities to transmit impulses to the brain. These impulses provide vision, the miracle of color, perception and the ability to learn. Eighty percent of everything we learn comes to us through our sight and the use of our eyes.

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It’s common sense to take good care of your eyes still we sometimes neglect them. There are sometimes when we get debris on our eyes even though we wear eye protection. For example, when you get a piece of metal shaving on your eyes. If you ever encounter this problem, do not panic and do not touch your eye. Make sure you always keep with you a new clean shaft and screw gun tip and if you put the screw gun tip really close to your eyes while your eye is open. The magnet on the tip will retract the piece of metal shaving preventing damage to your eye ball. If you happen to get sheetrock or dust in your eyes, do not panic or touch your eye. Make sure you flush your eyes for 10 to 15 minutes with clean water, and make sure any minor incident is also reported to your supervisor. Most employees wear a pair of safety glasses at the time of the accident, but unfortunately, they are on the forehead and not right over their eyes.

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The ironic part of this is that most people also own cool sunglasses and they protect their cool sunglasses with cases to prevent scratches when they should protect their eyes. How sad that something that could be judged in dollars and cents was worth protecting, but sight is always taken for granted.

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