Your health is your biggest wealth, so it is of utmost importance to take good care of every part of your body, especially if you are involved in light or heavy industry. For example, while performing construction tasks or other activities which involve high levels of risk to your well-being such as exposure to toxic chemicals, it is important to do the right thing to protect yourself.

The most sensitive part of our body are eyes. If an irritant or certain chemical enters your eyes, knowing how to properly wash it can save your sight. Prevention is better than cure, so save yourself from troubles and learn how to use an eye wash station. If you work with hazardous chemicals, you need to know where this useful appliance is located and how to use it.

• The eye wash station has to be available within 10 seconds of unobstructed walk from where the harmful materials are being used.

• It is usually easy to operate an emergency eye wash station as they are designed for hands-free operation with either paddles, levers or a pull-lever. To turn it off, just reverse the action which is required to turn it on.

• The first few seconds after exposure to chemicals are critical. Do not even think of delaying the treatment even for a few seconds because this may result in a great eye damage.

• Put your eyes immediately directly in the stream of the flushing liquid and hold your eyes wide open with your fingers. The eye wash station is hands-free, thus you will not have to hold the lever open. Once you activate it, the unit will stay on.

• Gently roll your eyes from left top right and up and down to ensure that the fluid is flushing all areas of your eyes.

• Keep flushing for fifteen minutes because it is important to fully dilute the chemicals and wash it out of your face. Do not do it for less than 15 minutes because it will not be enough to get the unwanted chemicals out of your eyes. The temperature of the eye wash station should be somewhere between 15-35 C so you can comfortably be able to continue flushing for the whole period.

• If you wear contact lenses, remove them before flushing. This is important because they can trap the chemicals in your eyes.

• After you are done with the flushing, go see a doctor establish whether anything else needs to be done to avoid unwanted consequences.