Public Service Announcement

[Burton]

I will be out of commision a while, probably about a week. It's very hard for me to type with one eye, so I won't be able to post much for a while. Some of you who are in on the fog light cover GP might have to wait a little while longer. I was going to close it and start taking payments this weekend, but it might be next weekend now.

 

Anyway, I took a cordless screwdriver to the eye yesterday. I feel pretty stupid how I did it. I was sitting down next to the Bronco screwing some trim up to the bottom of the fender, using both hands to put pressure up on the screwdriver to drive the screw in, but it slipped off the screw, popped up the side of the fender, then slid up my cheek under my saftey glasses and into my eye at the tear duct, ripping that open on it's way. It didn't even scratch the saftey glasses. Here's the ironic part... I started screwing that way because I didn't want to lay on the ground and push away from me, because I have had rust and dirt fall in my eyes doing it like that. I've screwed stuff inlike this dozens of times before, and even had a similar thing happen before but never made it to my face.

 

Anyway, I knew exactly what I did when I did it, and started freaking out. I almost passed out but didn't, and once I felt around and knew my eyeball was still in my head and I wasn't pouring blood, I calmed down enough to walk into the house and call Kate to come take me to the hospital.

 

The ER doc and the eye DR both say I'm very lucky not to be blind in that eye. They're optimistic I won't have any major vision damage since most vision comes from the very center of the eye, but I may have some perifial vision problems. I guess I won't really know until the patch comes off and the eye heals fully, so hopefully I'll know more by this weekend. I also have to go back to the eye DR today so he might know more then too. Basically, the hillips bit that was on the drill went into my eye and scratched it very badly. It even took out chunks in the white parts of my eye. Luckily, the part over my iris is only scratched badly and should heal. Parts of the white of my eye got damaged permanatly, but since you don't see out of the white part it shouldn't give me any vision problems. Very luckily, the area over my pupil where you see the most wasn't even scratched, so if anything I may just have some perifial vision problems.

 

I've had many trips to the ER and many injuries in my life. Broken ribs, fractures skull, broken nose, ruptured discs in my bac, etc.. but I think this is way up there in the worst injuries I've had to deal with. Not just with the pain involved, but how much harder it is to do things with no eyesight like last night, and only one good eye like today. I can see myself being MUCH more cautious about my eyes from here on out, and doubt I'll be using that method to screw a screw in ever again.

 

I suspect I'll be taking it pretty easy on my eyes the next few days and won't be posting much because it's very hard for me to type with one eye (this took me over an hour to type), but I will be checking in from time to time to try and stay current with what's going on.

 

 

Kate linked up some pics and more info on my Facebook page and in a thread in the BS section over at 26liter, so if you want to know more, you can check there for more info and updates. Just figured I'd let y'all know what's up if I wasn't around for a few days and you were wondering what was up with the GP.

 

Hopefully I'll be back to annoy everyone in about a week.

[Convette]

dang dude, hope you get better. That sucks.

[fijiblueman]

take care of that eye and well see you when you get back.

 

 

 

Paul

[Crazy larry]

Scary

[Scotty Dont]

ARGH!!! I hope yee matie feels better.

 

http://wholesale.piratemerch.com/images/pirate_patch-leather.jpg

[Ken_B.]

Hate to hear about your injury, but thanks for sharing it. It might prevent someone else from having a similar injury. I know I will think twice before using a cordless drill like that again (which I've done hundreds of times). Hope everything heals well and soon.

 

Ken B.

[StrongTyer]

I saw the pics on facebook. Im glad your ok and hope everything heals up right! At least your in pretty good spirits... getting injured SUCKS!

 

Take it easy man.

 

It couldve been worse. Check out what happened to this guy.

 

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/drillbit.asp

[Shelby]

Shelby < slaps Burton with a dead fish , thought i taught you better then that http://www.starquestclub.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif

well get better soon lucky, years back we were building my pole barn and on the very last nail my bro took of his safty galasses , sat down and said crap i miss'd that nail,, got back up on the ladder and hit the nail ,it came back out and stuck in his eye 3/4 inch deep

 

we took him to the hospital and cause it was x-mas week end no eye doctor was in town,, had to drive him 120 miles to tampa with the nail still in his eye , he also was lucky,,the nail was slick and it seal'd up the hole so no fluid leak'd out,, no nerve damage , in 3 months he was good as new

 

but sure scare'd the crap out of us

[lmwii]

i've chunked myself in the finger enough times to get the willies thinking about doing the same to my eye. hope you recover fully.

[Project83]

Sorry to hear that, hope it heals up good and fast. I pretty much did the same thing to myself just not that bad when i was about 5 except i was hitting a tree with a screwdriver... i don't really remember why lol.

[Burton]

Thanks for all the concern guys.

 

 

The doc visit went well today and I can lose the patch and start the drops tomorrow. I'm hoping I can get back to work soon, this has put me a few days behind.

 

I'll try and get some pics up tomorrow. It looks pretty nasty. I got a nice black eye and a bunch of blood in the eyeball.

[TopDawg_43]

Shelby < slaps Burton with a dead fish , thought i taught you better then that http://www.starquestclub.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif

 

 

 

BBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ha ha ha ha ha ha aha ha ha aha ha aha ah ha ah ah ha

 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, hope everything comes out alright for you.

Edited August 5, 2010 by TopDawg_43

[importwarrior]

i would not worry about the GP yet. I think they would all

be understanding due to the circumstances. concentrait on

getting better. i wish you to get well ASAP !

Edited August 5, 2010 by importwarrior

[Burton]

Doing a little better today. The patch is off for good now and I can see a little better out of my left eye than yesterday. I't's still pretty blurry, but I can make things out pretty well, just have dificulty distinguishing words and letters unless they are fairly close or large. It's very difficult to open it very far since it's all swolen. I'm still trying to keep it closed as much as possible, and can still see perfect out of my right eye without causing much pain to my left eye, so I'm starting to be able to do more of the normal stuff I haven't been able to do the past couple days.

 

I may try and get a little work done tomorrow, but am hoping for sure to be able to start getting caught back up out in the garage hardcore by saturday or sunday. I was already a little behind before all this happened and I got deadlines to make. I will be wearing a patch over my bad eye for a couple weeks yet, but only when I'm out in the garage- better safe than sorry.

 

Anyway, here's a link to some pics. I would just post them up here, but some of them might be bad for people with weak stomachs...

 

my link

[StrongTyer]

i would not worry about the GP yet. I think they would all

be understanding due to the circumstances. concentrait on

getting better. i wish you to get well ASAP !

 

+1

[pure_insanity]

dude, thats pretty bad. ive had a few eye injuries but nothing like that. i got a nice sized piece of steel in my eye a while back, more like a sliver about 1/4" long. it was long enough that it had my contact pinned to my eye. when i took out my contact, it actually tore it as it slid over the sliver of metal. the bad part about it was it had been there for a day or so when i realized something was wrong. ive got an extremely high tolerance for pain and the doc says he doesnt know how it wasnt killi9ng me before i actually came in to see him. said it had already began to rust pretty bad and even after he pulled the sliver out, he had to go back and basically drill and chew out portions of my eye to get all the rust out. that part was pretty freaky as hes got a little miniature dremel tool with one of those little router bits in the end of it. was hard as crap to sit still while he did it. then after it was all said and done i couldnt put my contacts back in for about 2 weeks so i went with one contact and one bad eye for a while. believe it or not you will actually sort of adjust your brainso to speak to the effect of half good/bad vision and even though you still notice it, it gets easier to deal with after a couple days.

the ironic part of all this was just like burton said, i was even wearing safety glasses when it got in my eye. ive done lots and lots of stuff with no safety glasses and then one occasion with them, and pow, got my arse.

best of luck with the healing up mark. take advantage of the situation while you can and get kate to bring you lots of lemonade and suck up some a/c.

[Burton]

Well, I was VERY lucky. My eyesight is at about 99.9%, and other than the remnants of a black eye and some blood in my eyeball, I'm back to normal just 8 days later.

 

 

So, the Tinted Fog Light Cover GP is back on now and I'm taking payments, so get in on that if you're down. Oh, and be carefull with them cordless drills.

 

And thanks again for all the kind words, support, calls, texts, etc... I got from everybody.