Let’s play ball! With school and many sports seasons starting up again, we’re all excited to gear up and get in the game!
Let’s play ball! With school and many sports seasons starting up again, we’re all excited to gear up and get in the game!
While we enjoy the fun, we should also take precautions against eye injuries, which are alarmingly common in sports.
Sports Eye Injury Statistics
Every year, 42,000 athletes have to go to the emergency room for eye injuries, and eye injuries like these are the leading cause of blindness in children still in school. An impact from a ball or another player in just the wrong place can lead to a host of injuries including corneal abrasions, fracturing of the orbital bone (eye socket), or swollen or detached retinas, just to name a few.
Eye injuries aren’t limited to contact sports and those with projectiles like baseball and tennis, however. For outdoor sports, the sun can also be a problem, damaging players’ eyes with harmful UV rays.
Find The Right Eyewear For Your Sport
Now, before you pull your kids out of all of their fall sports programs, we’ll tell you the good news: eye injuries are easy to prevent. All it takes is the right eye protection.
Polycarbonate safety goggles offer excellent eye protection in sports like basketball and racquetball. Just make sure the goggles are labeled ASTM F803 approved, because these have been performance tested. Batting helmets should include polycarbonate face shields for baseball players to protect against wild pitches. Hockey players’ eyes also benefit from helmets with face shields that keep errant pucks and sticks at bay.
