Summer Eye Safety

Summer is a time for rest, relaxation, and celebration. Longer days and warmer temperatures allow us to spend more time doing activities outside.Despite the many benefits that summer brings, our eyes and our vision, face several serious dangers. An eye injury can impact all aspects of your life, whether it leads to a temporary or permanent condition. Here are the five greatest eye safety dangers we face each summer.

The sun

Long-term sun exposure has been shown to increase the chance of developing cataracts. It also causes and accelerates macular degeneration. A good pair of high quality sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat are the best protection for your eyes.

Swimming

To avoid bacteria that can lead to eye injury, swimming with goggles is recommended. Also, it’s recommend that you don't swim with contact lenses because they absorb and hold water, trapping any bacteria or parasites close to the eye.

Sports

Playing sports carries a risk of eye injury from stray racquets, balls, or accidents during play. Some of the most common eye injuries are caused by baseball, tennis, and racquetball. The impact from even relatively light balls can damage the retina or result in bleeding between the cornea and iris, leading to glaucoma or vision impairment.

Fireworks

Fireworks can cause serious and permanent eye injuries. The most recent fireworks injury report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found that in 2014, fireworks caused around 1,300 eye injuries. Even more alarming: These numbers were double the numbers reported just two years earlier.

The best advice regarding fireworks is:

• Never let young children play with any types of fireworks.
• Leave the lighting of any type of professional grade fireworks to the professionals.
• If you do handle consumer type fireworks, then always make sure you are wearing protective eyewear.
• Keep bystanders well away from fireworks and offer them eye protection as well.

Outdoor work

While many types of outdoor work — including pruning branches and trees — pose the risk of eye damage, the greatest risks come with operating machinery such as lawn mowers and weed trimmers. This is because their use can cause objects such as small rocks to fly out at very high speeds that can cause permanent eye injury. It is essential that you wear proper protective goggles when using these types of equipment.

Eye injuries and accessibility

If you suffer from vision impairment or any type of eye injury, web accessibility will be increasingly important to you. Fortunately, there are many tools and devices that can be used on properly accessible web pages to improve the user experience of people with vision problems.

These include screen readers, magnification tools, and browser settings that can make viewing text or images easier. Available browser settings to improve the legibility of information include:

• Display size and font size adjustments
• Magnification gestures to temporarily zoom or magnify sections of the screen
• Contrast and color options to create high contrast text or account for color blindness

This summer, make sure you get out and enjoy yourself. But don’t forget to take precautions!