Safety and Health

It had taken some effort to crawl under the family caravan. It was hot and the dusty ground was hard on his back. Yet he managed to get into a suitable position where he could drill the two holes needed in the metal frame.

As he was about to commence his work, he realised he had forgotten to get his safety glasses from the shed. The thought of crawling back out from his cramped position was enough for him to say to himself; “Ah, she’ll be right, only two holes to drill and then I’m out of here”.

As the day wore on it became evident that he had something irritating in his eyes, so he tried the old eyebrow over eyelash and blow your nose trick, but that didn’t work. Neither did the eyedrops kept in the fridge for such an event offer any relief. Still the ‘she’ll be right’ attitude persisted, even into the next day.

It was only because it became hard to sleep that he realised he should do something about it. So, at midnight he arrived at the emergency entrance of the local hospital and joined the Saturday night queue, along with blood besmeared accident victims and others obviously ill and needing medical assistance.

Fortunately, the hospital was equipped with an optical consultation room and it was here he was informed he had pieces of steel in both eyes. The pain deadening drops were a relief, but then came the removal process, which had to be done by flipping the metal pieces out with a blunt needle.

Having survived this attack, he was next informed that because of the time he had taken to have the steel removed, rust had formed on his eyeballs. This required removal with a torch like battery operated shaft containing a small grinder. At the successful completion of this process, his eyes were thoroughly checked and he was informed he was very fortunate he had not done permanent damage to his eyesight.

And the moral of the story is that it is just as important to recognise safety and health issues at home as it is in the workplace.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s life.

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