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I almost lost my eyesight in a cabinet shop
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My job was to then take the precut lengths and alter them to fit into different cabinet sizes. The racks were from the floor up to about seven feet high. They were just within reach of my 5' 6” tall body. As I was approaching the rack at a rather fast pace, I was bending down to get a board from the lower pile and just about chest high there was a board sticking out that I did not see until it literally grazed across my eye. Well it actually was more like a slight poke. In any case my eye was open and took a direct hit.
The edge of the board had a substance that we call melamine in the cabinet industry. Some times the edges of the plastic coating were not cleaned off by the manufactures and the portion of melamine hanging over would be thin and sharp like a razor. I could still see but instantly my eyesight became a little blurred and a co-worker said that it was turning red. I was taken to the emergency room where I was examined an prescribed some special prescription drops. Lucky for me, everything turned out to be fine. Now twenty seven years later, I can still see without any lasting effects from the incident.
The day that I almost lost my eyesight really slowed me down a lot at work. I became much more preceptive of the dangers around me. It just now occurred to me that I was not wearing safety glasses at the time. I have since worked with table saws, skill, jig saws and other power tools and never had such a close call as that one was. The funny thing is that I wasn't even near a saw when I almost lost my sight in one eye. So for all you cabinet makers out there, be very careful and always wear eye protection.
It was many years ago, well twenty seven to be exact. I remember it like it was yesterday though. I almost lost my eyesight working in a cabinet shop. I had seen a few employees with drooping eye lids and some without fingers but the dangers really didn't hit home until I had an accident. My position in the mill department was cabinet parts cutter.
All day long my responsibility was to keep three cabinet assemblers busy building boxes for kitchens, bathrooms and laundry rooms. We worked primarily for contractors who built condominiums. Occasionally we would run a custom kitchen down the line. But for the most part it was all production work with minimum changes to the set standard sizes.
It was on a very busy work day. Well everyday was steady but for some reason this day I was rushed. We had in our cutting area what we referred to as, “stock racks.” This is where other mill men would cut rips to particular withs in eight foot lengths and pile stock the wood.
