Eye
Safety
at work
and
play
by David Goldberg
F
or Barry Weatherall, April
13, 1998 started as an
average day at work, but
the plumber and hot water
engineer was tasked with using
sulphuric acid to clean copper
manifold headers. He was the first
person to take on the new procedure
at work and it was a job that would
change his life forever.
“I was wearing a paper dust
mask,” says Weatherall, recounting
the day of his accident, “... a welder’s
mask, gloves and a coat. I poured the
chemical in then I took everything
off except the paper dust mask for
some reason, but it saved my life.
Otherwise the chemicals would’ve
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OPTICAL PRISM | OCTOBER 2013
gone in my lungs.”
He was mixing caustic soda
beads to neutralize the acid sitting
inside an underground pipe. He shed
most of his protective gear except the
paper mask covering his mouth and
nose. He left to write down a
procedure. He returned ten minutes
later and peered down the pipe’s
opening. Something went terribly
wrong. The acid reacted in a different
way, creating so much heat and
pressure that the chemicals exploded
40 feet into the air.
“Like a bullet from a gun,”
describes Weatherall. “I got bad
information. I got false information
from the chemical company. I
shouldn’t have done what I did.”
He suffered third degree burns
on his face and neck. His right eye
had to be removed that day. He lost
vision in his left eye in hospital a few
days later.
“[Telling
my
story]
just
sometimes reminds me of the beauty
of the world that I’ve lived in that I
can’t see anymore. But I deal with it
and it does get easier as time goes on
... but it’s very emotional.”
Weatherall relives that day often.
He travels across Western Canada
speaking at safety seminars in hopes
of preventing horrific accidents like
the one he suffered.
The Canadian National Institute