Due you want to see me take my eye out? I can and you can too! That is if you don't use proper eyewear when doing various activities that may be hazardous to your eyes. I would like to take the time today to explain to all of you why it is important to wear the right kind of eye protection when, let's say, working with tools. I am also going to try and persuade you to use proper eyewear and I am going to do this with some facts, a little data, and a short story.
             Do you play sports, such as tennis or baseball? Do you use a lawn mower or a lawn trimmer? Do you like to do carpentry? These and many other daily activities put people at risk for eye injuries. Eye injuries are common, especially impact injuries (that is injuries caused by something striking the eye). These injuries can range from a mild corneal abrasion to hyphema (bleeding into the anterior chamber of the eye) retinal detachment, penetration of the eye, or a ruptured globe (the eye breaking open). Sounds gruesome doesn't it. The good news is that some eye injuries heal with no after-effects, but (and there is always a "but") others result in impaired vision or (especially in the case of a ruptured globe) loss of the eye. The worst part of all this news is that the largest majority of all these injuries are easily preventable and the biggest part of the people with eye injuries is that they don't use eye protection of any kind to prevent this from happening.
             Due to not participation in the use of proper eye protection, according to Sports Ophthalmology by Dr. Bruce M. Zagelbaum there has been over 200,000 eye injures in the past couple of years. According to Sports Vision (Introduction to Behavioral Optometry) by Alan W. Reichow and Michael W. Stoner, of the 200,000 injures 70% are due to sports, 10% are due to fireworks, and the other 20% go to working with tools and car accidents injuries. So you see there is a large range of...