Personal Protective Equipment

     She danced into the room with a cheerful smile and warm greeting.  About 20 or 21 years old and brimming with energy she smiled and asked, “How are you feeling today”? No response. “I baked you some of your favorite cookies” Nothing. “The doctors say that you might be going home in a couple of days”. Silence. “Aren’t you going to say anything”? He didn’t. You see the young man that the girl was talking to was her fiancé, a young electrician apprentice at the beginning of what was supposed to be a fruitful and prosperous career, but unfortunately he made a one second mistake that cost him dearly.

     The price that he paid was not measurable in dollars and cents, not a function of volunteering a finite amount of time to his favorite charity, but a cost much more near and dear. He paid for his one second mistake with one of his eyes, a price that can never be substantiated to anyone under any circumstances, and he was bitter. He was angry and rightly so, now he would have to relearn so many skills that he had taken for granted for all of his life, until now. Now it would be different. He didn’t tell her but he no longer felt like he was “whole”. He didn’t think that he “stacked up” to other guys his age and it was eating at him like cancer from the inside out. And this, all of this was because of a one second lapse in judgment.

     He didn’t know quite why he had taken off his safety glasses but the reason was moot. He lost an eye and now he would have to deal with it. He never saw the tip of the fish tape as it stabbed out from the end of the conduit and forever changed his life. Sound like an exaggeration created to scare us into wearing safety glasses? Well it’s not. That young man was my roommate in a hospital for two weeks and every day I watched as his fiancé tried in vain to reach him then leave the room dejected and in tears. One second…one second…and a lifetime of pain! Using your eye protection doesn’t guarantee a long and fruitful life, but not using it is just plain stupid.