"WISE OWLS" HAVE AN EXCLUSIVE CLUB

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 50, 29 June 1965, Page 16

"WISE OWLS" HAVE AN EXCLUSIVE CLUB

One of the most exclusive clubs in New Zea- j land — and surely the one whose qualification for membership is the most highly valued — is the Wise Owl Club. For the only people who can join are those who have saved their vision through wearing eye protection at work.

A few case histories will make plain what its members owe to their foresight in wearing safety glasses or other forms of

eye protection. A young spot welder in a motor assembly plant was struck in the face by a holding bracket which was accidantally released. The bracket struck him directly over his safety glasses, shattering the right lens and severely damaging the frame. It needs little imagination to guess what this young man would have been left with for the remainder of his life, had he not been wearing those glasses. Even younger workers, in- 1 cluding two apprentice fitters, will be able to see for the rest of their lives because they were wearing safety glasses when the drill snapped as they were operating lathes. In one case the broken portion flew with such force that it gouged a piece out of one of the toughened safety lenses. In the other case a lens was i i shattered into a honeycomb pattern, but held fast. In neither case was there the slightest damage to the apprentice's eyes. Safety spectacle lenses are not only resistant to breaking — when tested they must withstand the impact of a seven-eighths inch steel ball dropped from a height of 50 inches — but are also resistant to dislodgement from the frame. A welder was chipping very hard steel when a flying particle struck and smashed the left leais of his safety glasses. But not a fragment of the glass was dislodged. In some kinds of work, a full face shield is necessary— as for example was bedng worn by a furnaceman in a steel plant recently when a | blowback occurred. The shield stopped the full blast of fierce heiat and white-hot flame, which otherwise would have burnt the furnaceman's face severely and probably blinded him as well.