Lasers in the eye - Serious injury, Please Read

[Risky]

I have plans to see my laser making friend this weekend and intend to ask him more about this.
Thanks for the info.

Edited to add:
Here is his webpage, btw.
http://www.uv99.com/

[Snow]

HI WIFE! I never even saw you in BRC, not even once.

[ygmir]

HI WIFE! I never even saw you in BRC, not even once.

I even went looking for her, and could find her.

"The elusive Siren"

[gyre]

it may have been infrared.
My friend took it apart.

I thought there were more ways to make them?

[Packoderm]

http://www.laserpointersafety.com/persp ... risks.html

[jkisha]

http://www.laserpointersafety.com/perspectives/risks/risks.html

Hmmm...this site makes it seem that this entire thread is a whole lot of concern over nothing.

[Packoderm]

I've been reading up on it a bit. The majority of the injuries are self inflicted by children playing with them. Your eye has an automatic response to the flash of the laser and it looks away before damage occurs. Laser pointers are irritating, so the debate will go on.

[Zhust]

Here I thought this would be a thread about someone who was actually injured.

Do not shine FUD directly into eye.

This whole "Safety Third" bullshit has not gone far enough!

WHERE ARE TEH INJUREES?

[Ugly Dougly]

Yeah, otherwise watts the point?

[westnileraven]

Also I just really hate you laser-raping all the effigies and video art and even some dancers. I am seriously gonna assault the next person who shines a a fucking laser on any part of a human being. I think you are the same assholes who left beer cans everywhere. This ain't Mardi Gras!!

[HiBbY]

Well taking all that into account, we must also realize that many burners who attend are usually constantly on some kind of psycedelic, and with your pupils dialated to tha point ur body would take in quite a lot of light through the pupil. if you got some jackhasselhoff shinin a damn laser pointer in your eye imagine the damage you could recieve. Your eye would probably take in around 70% of the laser at least which would potentially do a good amount of damage to your pumitary nerve in the very back of the eye, which would cause a severe depth perception dissorder (other known as DERP to many 4channers and trolls)

[junglesmacks]

I dunno whatcher talkin' about.

[HiBbY]

Its just simple matter of breaking down knowledge. the more your pupil is open, the more light your eyes take in, and if you are having a laser pointer shined in your eye with your pupil dialated, you will have a higher chance of taking damage

[BBadger]

Dilated pupils are not a big deal in the larger scheme of things. There is not much difference in having a 6mm-diameter pupil vs. a 3mm diameter pupil when the spot size of the laser does not change much. Any pointer-class (class 3r or less) laser pointer will trigger the blink reflex before major damage. Any more powerful lasers will still be just as dangerous, dilated pupil or not.

Dilated pupils are more a problem when you're dealing with non-visible wavelength laser light, where you don't even know you're taking in eye damage. That goes for green lasers and their IR if you're wearing goggles that block out green light but not IR, but your pupils dilate because of the low VLT of the goggles (amount of light that does make it through).

[HiBbY]

I agree highly sir, just throwing a few fun facts out in the air ya know? XD

[westnileraven]

I don't agree that it isn't dangerous. Enough beers will slow down one's blink reflex. Never mind psychedelics, these things happen at night when pupils are expanded regardless.
I know, safety third; don't climb it you think you will fall off it. No sleeping under art cars and basically your safety is your responsibility but I can't really protect myself/hide from blinky things. I love blinky things.
If I find you shining it at a strangers titties (again), I'm gonna sidle up and kick you in the ankle as hard as I can. And not just because you might unintentionally shine it in her eye.

[Zhust]

Dear everyone kvetching,

Shut the fuck up and let someone who has personally been injured by a laser to step forward. As far as I'm concerned, lasers are at least 1,000 times safer than rebar sticking out of the ground (e.g. rebar causes real, documented injures; lasers have caused zero injuries) so it's completely pointless to furiously argue about it.

How about this, find me one published article from a local newspaper website documenting a person injured from a laser at a club. The rule is it must mention that the person sustained injuries which were confirmed by an eye doctor and that those injuries led to vision damage that lasted longer than 1 hour.

[BBadger]

There are documented injuries, and there were those injuries at that outdoor rave in Russia. In most of these documented eye injuries (no idea about the Russians), people have recovered, except for REALLY high powered ones. Also, in talking with people who I've seen ask about eye damage and have gone to a doctor said the doctor didn't see anything wrong. I don't know if you can't actually see some damage if there's no scar, or if it's recoverable damage.

The thing with most club lasers in the US is that they must follow standards that will prevent the beam from interacting with the audience. That means being 3 meters above the peoples' heads (I believe that's correct), doing power level measurements at all places that will intersect the beams, etc. Audience scanning, while popular in Europe, is not allowed in the US.

I do get pretty scared when people are waving around those 1W blue lasers at BM. Over 500mW is considered class 4, and even the reflections off matte surfaces can be dangerous. I admit, I brought a 600mW, and rarely took it out and never aimed at ground level, but after a while I just kept it away for fear others would want to use theirs and "compare" peni... lasers.

[westnileraven]

Thank you. I was dancing looking at the floor in a couple of venues because there were patterny cycler things aimed down on us from the corners of the dome. I really like my vision. I really would be pissed if even small amounts of damage happened. I'm way more cavalier about my hearing.

[gyre]

Eye damage can be cumulative, just like hearing damage.

It is not always measurable at moderate levels, but there is attrition.

Generally speaking, the optic nerve does not heal, past a certain point.


Don't be stupid about your hearing either.

[some seeing eye]

Eye damage is much more serious than rebar damage because damage to the retina cannot be repaired. The danger of laser injury is unfortunately perceived as abstract, when it is quite real.

[BBadger]

I swear I lose a portion of my hearing every time I'm at BM. It might just be age too.

Those little laser pattern things do scatter the light quite a bit, probably down to safer levels--that is, provided they are far enough away from the audience. I still avoid my gaze, especially for blues and reds because they don't seem as bright to the eye, despite their power.

[ZaphodBurner]

How about this, find me one published article from a local newspaper website documenting a person injured from a laser at a club. The rule is it must mention that the person sustained injuries which were confirmed by an eye doctor and that those injuries led to vision damage that lasted longer than 1 hour.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... avers.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -show.html
http://www.laserist.org/2008-07_Russian-incident.htm


"Twenty people are undergoing treatment in Moscow hospitals, said Elena Grishina, the head doctor at the Moscow Ophthalmological Hospital, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported Monday. “The treatment is not very pleasant. It involves a lot of needles,” Grishina said. “But all the patients are in optimistic spirits, and we are hoping for a good result.”
http://futuremusic.com/blog/2008/07/15/ ... lightshow/

[gyre]

I swear I lose a portion of my hearing every time I'm at BM. It might just be age too.

Losing your hearing is not a natural part of aging.

In areas with low noise exposure, perfect hearing may last into the nineties.

[Bay Bridge Sue]

I dunno... I think we ought to ban anything that someone thinks may cause harm, or not. Like that mile clock last year. Or how about air with dust levels higher than what I think is safe - so during white outs, no one is allowed to breathe. And the loud music - it hurts my ears, so none of that. In fact, lets ban all the camps that apply as "sound camps". And booze - you know, people die of alcohol poisoning - better ban that too. Oh heck, people have died of exposure and dehydration - better put any place like that off limits...

See, it doesn't end. People KNOW not to stare into a laser, but still do. Not caught off guard, but see a beam over their head, and climb on something to see who's running the thing, so they can scold them. Yeah, I saw it bad last year at the burn. Yeesh.

[BBadger]

I swear I lose a portion of my hearing every time I'm at BM. It might just be age too.

Losing your hearing is not a natural part of aging.

In areas with low noise exposure, perfect hearing may last into the nineties.

Well I'm not too sure about that, some of it is genetics, but most young people suffer their hearing loss via the loud music they listen to. I remember going to one of the sound stages at BM this year and putting some wadded up paper in my ears to prevent the sound from being too loud (kills the high frequency noise which is best). I swear I was getting indigestion from the bass pulses moving through that air; I can only imagine what the sound was doing to peoples' ears.

I dunno... I think we ought to ban anything that someone thinks may cause harm, or not. Like that mile clock last year. Or how about air with dust levels higher than what I think is safe - so during white outs, no one is allowed to breathe. And the loud music - it hurts my ears, so none of that. In fact, lets ban all the camps that apply as "sound camps". And booze - you know, people die of alcohol poisoning - better ban that too. Oh heck, people have died of exposure and dehydration - better put any place like that off limits...

Actually that one-mile clock guy got a laser variance from the FAA as well as other safety measures such as laser radiation measurement at objects the laser would intersect (e.g. the temple). So he was actually doing his job to make it safe.

I have no problem with people injuring themselves from their own actions. Yes, take the guard rails off and let people do what they want--to themselves. If you're walking up to some loud speaker, you should expect to lose some hearing from it. If you're going out of your way to walk into a laser beam, expect to suffer the consequences. It's when I don't have a decision in the matter, that's the problem. Getting "dazzled" by a low-powered laser pointer can be pretty disorienting, and at the very least messes with your night vision (the real threat to airline pilots). Higher-powered lasers can give you permanent blindness, loss of color acuity, etc.

I'm not a big fan of people scolding others like those teachers everyone hated in grade school, but then again, I don't trust people with lasers either. It's like trusting someone with a gun, or a flame thrower, or something like that. I just don't know. Some people just like annoying people with toys and stuff. I remember with my old friend, who had ADD, every time I'd try and trust him with something like BB guns, or even mundane things like water balloons, he'd try and be a jerk about it. "Don't point the gun at anyone." Every time he It was like a safety warning was a call to action to circumvent it.

Half the reason I get on people to be more safe with their lasers is that I don't want some stupid incident to result in some laws like Australia has, where any laser over 1mW is illegal (regular laser pointers in the US can be as high as 5mW). I *like* owning higher powered lasers and all the cool stuff related to them. I don't even mind people shining those things around at BM, illuminating objects like the man, etc. I think it's pretty darn cool. What I don't like is when people want to light up other people or some such.

[Zhust]

See, it doesn't end. People KNOW not to stare into a laser, but still do. Not caught off guard, but see a beam over their head, and climb on something to see who's running the thing, so they can scold them. Yeah, I saw it bad last year at the burn. Yeesh.

The irony is that climbing on top of something puts one in more danger than the laser itself.

From what I can guesstimate from the article BBadger linked, a 50mW would need to sustain a direct hit to a 7mm hole from 10 meters away for 10 seconds (and the person needs to stare at the painfully-bright light source for that time, fighting all instinct and reflex to look away) before damage would occur that would heal completely in 3 months anyway. (Point-blank for 5 seconds or so would be enough to cause permanent damage.)

You're more likely to fall and break your wrist (which would also heal in 3 months, but likely leave permanent functional damage).

But Bay Bridge Sue, as to your snowball-effect argument, I think it is thwarted by fact (which appears to be the rationale employed by the BOrg in bans of high-speed vehicles, guns, and tiki torches). The danger from handheld lasers requires such an unlikely set of rare coincidence that by measured account, they are safe. For danger to one's vision, they're about as dangerous as a fishing rod.

All it takes is to list out the various dangers present in a situation and assess the likelihood and severity of injury to realize what should and shouldn't be banned. (... what a curious idea ...) For instance, the ban on guns is, I think, justifiable because of the density of people: say, take a likely point like on B-street and draw a circle 100 meters in diameter, you'll find that the odds of a radial line (e.g. bullet) hitting a person are on the order of 1 in 1,000. Part of the danger is it requires no knowable action on the part of the victim as opposed to, say, burning themselves on a 800°F burn barrel — something that is not banned. (By the way, in essence, the use of guns is banned — I guarantee that there are a lot of people who have guns at Burning Man but never bring them out, and since the gate doesn't search, they're never ever seen.)

[BBadger]

See, it doesn't end. People KNOW not to stare into a laser, but still do. Not caught off guard, but see a beam over their head, and climb on something to see who's running the thing, so they can scold them. Yeah, I saw it bad last year at the burn. Yeesh.

The irony is that climbing on top of something puts one in more danger than the laser itself.

From what I can guesstimate from the article BBadger linked, a 50mW would need to sustain a direct hit to a 7mm hole from 10 meters away for 10 seconds (and the person needs to stare at the painfully-bright light source for that time, fighting all instinct and reflex to look away) before damage would occur that would heal completely in 3 months anyway. (Point-blank for 5 seconds or so would be enough to cause permanent damage.)

I'm not sure about that. The laser beams stay quite collimated over distances. Even with some greens that have a 1cm spot size at 10m (far from their claimed 1.5mRad divergence), 50mW has some pretty high power densities. Even if the damage goes away over some time, it's not something you want to suffer anyway. Hell, our skin can be torched by a flame and heal in three months too, but nobody wants to suffer that.

I'm not actually that concerned about those lower-powered lasers though. Usually there's a lot of dust and distance between you and the laser. I'm more concerned about those high-powered blue lasers. They're usually over 500mW, which means the spot on a matte surface can be dangerous to look at. Shorter (blue, violet) wavelengths are also less bright to the eye, but more damaging, especially to color acuity. You may not see "scorch marks" but your color perception can be noticeably damaged. Violet lasers, in particular are very hard to see, and you can only see how truly bright they are when they fluoresce a surface.

[remi]

Lasers are soo fun to play with, but some people have to ruin the fun for others. I was at another festival last year when someone ran up to me accusing me of running around shinning people in the face, when all I was doing is asking people to point out there favorite star.. so unless the person was taller then 'the man', I don't think I (or anyone I let use my laser) got it near anyone's eyes.. and I was very nazi about it to people that asked to borrow my laser... but you gotta be when your passing around a weapon and using it as a toy.

Just look at my dogs eyes.. that's what happens when you get a green laser pointed at them for to long.

[FIGJAM]

I thought you just wired him that way.