How to Protect Your Eyes When Jump-Starting Your Car

When it comes to protecting the health and well-being of our eyes, many of us are focused on undergoing yearly check-ups, wearing safety goggles during construction work, and putting on protective sunglasses when out in the strong sunshine.

However, there’s another important step that many of us forget to take when protecting our eyes – and it’s a crucial step that could prevent receiving severe eye injuries when performing a mundane task.

Jump-starting your car might not seem like a major source for severe eye injuries; however, many people are injured by jump-starting their cars simply because they don’t take the proper precautions required to protect the eyes from flames, battery acid, and other dangers, which can include the following:

• Jump-starting the car can unleash of bevy of sparks, which may ignite into flames.
• Battery acid can be splattered during the process, which may end up on your face and your eyes
• Flying battery parts can cause severe damage to the eyes if the battery explodes

With these dangers in mind, it’s no wonder people need to take careful precautions to protect their eyes before jump-starting a car.

Protecting Your Eyes When Jump-Starting Your Car

At NewView Eye Center in Reston, VA – serving the greater Washington DC and Fairfax county areas – Dr, Jacqueline Griffiths and her team of friendly professionals are dedicated to protecting and preserving your eye health.  Dr. Griffiths has identified the following methods for helping patients protect their eye health when jump-starting a car:

• Wear protective eyewear or goggles throughout the process of jump-starting the car.  Do not remove these goggles until the car has started and the hood has been closed.  To help remind you, you may want to consider attaching a pair of safety goggles to your jumper cables.

• Distinguish all cigarettes before approaching the hood of the car.  Never use a match to look under the hood of the car (instead, use a flashlight).

• Make sure the vehicles are not touching (this increases the risk that the battery will ignite)

• Do not allow the car clamps to touch one another.  Instead, attach the positive cable to the positive terminal of the dead battery (it will usually be red), then attach the other end to it’s corresponding terminal on the good battery.  Attach the negative cable (it should be black) to the good battery’s negative terminal, then to attach the other end of the black cable to the engine block away from the negative terminal. Do Not attach a cable to the negative terminal of the dead battery.

• Once the battery has been revived, remove the cables in reverse order of what’s written above.  Never lean over the battery throughout this entire process.

Should any eye injuries occur, contact Dr. Griffiths and her team at NewView Eye Center in Reston, VA immediately. We’re located near Herndon & Dulles in Fairfax county, serving all of Northern Virginia. You can reach us at 703-834-9777 or leave us a message here.