VISION-RELATED HAZARDS
Darkness on Roads: partial or complete reduction of light while traveling in a vehicle. It may be caused by night, rain, freezing rain or ice, snow, mud on windshield, cracks on windshield, fog, or dimming of lights, Take immediate corrective action. Clean or repair lights. Wash windshield or push it out if it is cracked too badly. Use a scraper or alcohol to remove the ice. Keep the defroster on and working. Clean, repair, and replace windshield wipers as needed. Stay on a busy road and follow taillights. Use dimmed headlights to avoid glare from fog or snow. Slow your speed. Hunch over the steering wheel. If you must walk, face the approaching traffic. Carry a flashlight and wear white or reflective clothing.
Fire: the visible active phase of combustion manifested in heat and light. White-hot fire can cause temporary loss of vision. Dive behind the nearest available object offering protection. Stay flat on the ground. Shield your eyes with your hands to reduce glare. Get away from the fire as soon as possible. The means of escape is covered under the Fire section of the chapter entitled Hot.
Fireball: usually ball-shaped lightning, a luminous meteor, or vaoorized debris formed around the center of a nuclear explosion. There may be other causes. All can cause temporary flash blindness. Take the first two actions indicated in the Fire section above, keeping your eyes shut tight. Shield your face with your knees. Prepare for a potentially large boom by locking fingers behind the top of your neck. Squeeze your ears with your arms. Keep elbows next to legs. The flash may last twenty seconds and the blast could come sixty seconds thereafter. Count to 200 before you move. Then place your hands over your eyes and open them slowly behind the slits in your fingers, Cover your eyes with a clean, dry dressing if flash blindness occurs.
Headlights: the beam of light from your car or from on coming cars, trucks, buses, or other vehicles. If on coming lights are misaligned or on high-beam, they can cause your loss of vision for four seconds or longer. Reduce speed and then stop on the shoulder of the road if the glare is blinding. Do not provoke the drivers into giving you their full beam. Dim your own lights when another vehicle approaches. Also, dim when driving behind others. Make sure your own lights are properly aligned. When in doubt, have them checked and adjusted at a service station.
Lightning: a sudden flash of light caused by the discharge of atmospheric electricity between electrified regions of clouds, or between a cloud and earth. Never look directly at a nearby flash. It can cause flash blindness. Bury your head against your legs and close your eyes. Do not lie flat on the ground. See the Hot section for other defenses against lightning.
Lights Out: power failure causing loss of source of illumination. Think about where you are. Consider all possible hazards in the immediate area. Check your pockets and surroundings for sources of light. Only move if you have to. Crawl and grope your way to the nearest safe point. Plan your escape route or overland movement in the event of an emergency. Otherwise, sit and wait for rescue, or for the lights to come back on. If driving, use your mind’s image of the road and bring your vehicle to a stop by braking slowly. Do not jam on the brakes. When outdoors, start a fire. Split tree limbs, dry plants, bamboo, or scrap wood and tie into a tight bundle. Light one end in the fire to make an ember torch to light your way.
Loss of Sight: the act of seeing is limited by something in the eye or by glare, flash, smoke, dirty windshield, or other causes. For something in the eye, do not rub. Blink many times or use a mirror to locate the object. Move your eye under the lid until the object is on the white of your eye. Wet and twist a corner of a handkerchief and gently brush the object out of the eye. If this does not work, pull the upper lid over the lower and wait for the washing action of tears. Anything that enters the eyes and burns must be flushed out quickly. Use any available clean water to irrigate eyes with water cupped in hands. Solutions to sunblindness, flash blindness, and snow blindness have been previously discussed. Use available supplemental light sources to help you see when limited light adds to the vision problem. Touch, sound, smell, and memory will help you to move if you have to. Move flat and on the ground to avoid heavy smoke. If on unknown or dangerous terrain, wait to recover your sight or wait for help before moving. This is especially true when in the mountains, swamps, deserts, jungles, woodlands, snow-covered areas, a mine or any location where movement generally requires full vision for finding a safe route. Keep your windshield washer filled and in working order to solve the dirty windshield problem quickly. When moving a blinded person to safety, verbally give movement directions in detail. Avoid forcing movements unless vital. Take the victim by the arm, after addressing him by name, and talk him through the ordeal.
Lost at Night: a person unable to find his way during hours of darkness. Do not panic. Think about where you are and where you want to go. Remember what you know about the route along the way, and the man-made or natural terrain features you should find enroute. Plan your route in your mind or study your map assuming you have one. People get lost even with a compass because they fail to make detailed notes on each leg of their intended route. In the absence of effective land navigation aids, consider the advantages of staying where you are until daylight. Moving without a compass will generally require you to guide by known land features and direction from the stars. Find the Big Dipper which looks like a water dipper, saucepan, or long-handled measuring cup. The two stars farthest from the handle point to the bright Polaris star that always sets within one degree of true North. In the southern hemisphere, you are forced to look for the Southern Cross which is used to find South. Find its four bright stars in a closely-knit cross. Avoid the false cross to the right with its dimmer stars having greater spacing between. Invision a line running from the center of the Southern Cross, bisecting a line running between the two bright stars to the left of the cross. This line will point due South.
Mirage: an optical illusion, usually a sheet of water, caused by distant objects being reflected from layers of atmosphere having different densities. Mirages can look like sailing ships, cities, and just about anything else. Viewed from different heights or angles, they will change shapes or simply vanish. Keep your sense of judgment. Do not stare. A mirage may have enough glare to cause sun blindness. For additional solutions see the Sun section.
Snow: accumulation of water vapor precipitated in the form of minute ice crystals when temperature is below freezing. It can cause snow blindness or a temporary dimming of the sight due to ultraviolet light reflected by the white of the snow. Protect your eyes by using slit-type goggles described under the Sun section above. If your eyes are hurt, they may water, burn, swell, and discharge. You may see colors and your eyes may feel like they are full of sand. Rest and keep your eyes protected. Do not use eye drops, ointment, or anything else in them. If you are located where freezing is not a hazard, cool eyes with wet compresses.
Sun: greatest source of light potentially harmful to your eyes. Never stare at the sun - it can blind. It takes only a few seconds to cause temporary sun blindness. Wear goggles with colored lenses to help reduce minor sun glare. Wear a hat to shade your eyes! For a major glare from water, sand, or snow, blacken upper cheeks with charcoal or mud. Improvise slit-type goggles from wood, leather, cloth, or other materials. Tie these around your head with shoe laces, cord, strips of cloth, vine, or anything that will work. If you have nothing else, cover your eyes with a handkerchief or thin material. Once the eyes have been damaged by sunlight, they must be protected until healed.
Underground: individuals or groups of people lost or trapped below the surface of the earth. This is usually the result of their entering a mine, cave, sewer, tunnel, or shaft. Do not enter any of these underground cavities unless you have a plan and a purpose. Your plan should provide for having a safety person on the surface who knows your planned movement and the time factors related thereto. Also plan to travel in two groups separated by considerable distance. The objective is to keep both groups from being lost or trapped at the same time. Thus, one group can come to the aid of the other. Each group should carry three separate light sources, marking chalk, several balls of cord, and food and water. Base the quantity of food and water on double the amount needed for the time you expect to spend underground. Marking chalk and cord will be used to mark your route in. So the quantity of this will depend on the distance to be traveled. Walk slowly to avoid falling down shafts or falling in water-filled holes. Be prepared to swim. If you become lost, simply backtrack your marked trail. Build morale to prevent subterranean sounds from overwhelming the members of the underground party. If trapped, do not shout or scream. Avoid futile movements. Consider your need to conserve the available oxygen supply. Reduce your activity level after attempting to poke a hole to provide a source of additional air. Seek a ledge to avoid any potential flooding problem. Do not panic. Hope and pray that you will be missed and that help will come.
