Keep Your Eye On Safety!

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 219, 16 September 1939, Page 3

Keep Your Eye On Safety!

Have you ever recoiled in pained surprise from a smack of a piece of kindling across the eye blood streaming down your cheek from shattered glasses— knifelike throbs probing your whirling brain? There is n stunned split second just after the impact, which mentally lasts for an hour. It's that frightful moment in which you grab blindly at something for support and try to screw up enough courage to open your eye—to find out it you can see. Just having been through the orde.il of a stupid eye accident, I speak feelAlthough I escaped with nothing more than a few agonised hours, there are thousands less fortunate, who carry an .even more vivid recollection of how easy it is to lose an eye. Look at some case histories: Rochester, New York: A four-year-old girl, playing at helping mother with the sewing lost the sight of her right eye when she accidentally poked the scissors into it. Richmond, Virginia: A six-year-old child, standing at the stove, fascinated by her mother's operations in making griddle cakes, was critically injured when some hot grease spattered into her eye.

Don't Let Carelessness Destroy Your Sight! her coiffure away from her reflection in a mirror, she miscalculated the distance. This business of working from thr false perspective of a mirror is an extremely common cause of serious eve accidents. If you must do it, at lea*t cover the eye on that side with one hand. Another simple cause of eye injuries if the business of unsnarling a knot in a string or a shoe lace with a knife, an ice pick or some other sharp instrument. Leaning over to see lietter, the victim is in a prime position to get caught in thi eye when the tool slips. Adults also sacrifice eyes in ghastly numbers in accidents with ammonia and other splashing household caustics; in wood chopping, especially kindling; in removing bottle tops with forks, screwdrivers, knife blades, etc. Soft drink bottles are also common offenders, especially when the carbonated contents have been agitated in the "wrassle" with the cap. The accidents which bring most juvenile victims into the hospitals involve air rifles; falling on sticks, lolli-

By--Paul W. Kearney

San Francisco: A seven-ear-old boy at a birthday party accidentally stuck his fork in his eye, puncturing the eyeball. Chicago: A school student wil] probably lose the sight of both eyes because of burns received when a celluloid eyeshade burst into flares as he lighted his pipe. New York: A bridesmaid, putting the finishing touches on her hair for the wedding ceremony, destroyed the siplit of an eye by thrusting a hot curling iron into it. Working on the side of

pops, etc.; bumping into table edges, door knobs, low hooks, screen door handles and other sharp objects at about their eye level. Scores of children share the misery ol the little girl who was helping her mother with the sewing. Adult scissors are dangerous for young children; so are standardised knives and forks and other sharp implements of that order. • Most parents seem to forget that a youngster develops muscular strength a long time before it acquires muscular control or co-ordination. Because a child is strong enough to manipulate a big fork like Daddvv-, it doesn't follow that he has control enough to get it into ' his mouth every time, instead of into his eye with painful results. More than once, as a dinner guest, I've protested when the nerve-racking suspense of watching Junior's wavering, uncertain fork flick his eyelashes has overcome my self-control. Those polite hostesses doubtless put me down as an old fuss-budget— and so may you. My only defence is that on 24 hour«' notice I'll round up for you two dozen children whose empty eye sockets confirm the old physical law that two ; objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. When one of those objects happens to be an eyeball, it pays to take that maxim on faith!