Protect your eyes with safety glasses while gardening or doing yard work

THOMAS ROPP, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Those plants you love to hate are back.

That means an arsenal of weed whackers, trimmers and lawn mowers soon will be hauled out to do battle with the green invaders.

What likely won't be included is protective eyewear.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology warns that yard work can be hazardous to eyes. Unprotected eyes are vulnerable to rocks and debris that can fly into your face, causing everything from a scratched cornea to loss of an eye.

Dr. Steven Chen, an ophthalmologist with Barnet-Dulaney-Perkins Eye Centers in Phoenix, Ariz., says weed whackers are especially dangerous.

"People who use them without safety glasses frequently come in with foreign objects in their eyes," Chen says.

One of the worst accidents he's seen involved a man whose lawn-mower blade broke on a rock and a piece of the blade hit him in the face, severing an eyelid muscle.

Safety glasses also are recommended for day-to-day gardening and pruning chores. Dirt in the eye can cause a bacterial infection, and tree sap can be toxic.

Chen says fungal infections, like the kind you might get from contact with a bush, are particularly nasty.

"They're slow-growing and difficult to eradicate even with antifungal medication," Chen says.

Inexpensive but effective safety glasses may be purchased at most garden centers for as little as $3 to $4, according to Chen.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

back to main Gardening index