Hi Guys,
I'd like to tell my story here, and see what you all think. The other day a guy at the office brought in his 1W 445NM Arctic laser. He gave it to me to look at. Being not really at that point introduced to that powerful of a laser, I wasn't aware of all of the dangers. I knew not to look into the beam, but wasn't aware of the danger of just viewing the dot.
Upon receiving it to look at, one of the other guys holds up his black leather wallet and tells me to fire it at it, and see what it does. I aim and fire it, and within about a second, I realize that I probably shouldn't be looking at the dot, and turn away. The wallet was probably 2 to 3 feet away from me.
After I get back into my office, I started to do research into the laser, and have learned quite a bit since then. I now know I should have never have done what I did, but of course, hindsight is 20/20.
about 30 hours or so after being exposed, I noticed an after image dot was starting to appear in my right eye when I was looking at my computer screen. If I'm in a dark room, it seems to go away. I went to my optometrist, who looked into my eye and said he didn't see any burns or holes in my retina. I told him about some of the stuff I had read online about the blue light hazard, and he said he wasn't really aware about it as I was the first person to come in that had been exposed to a blue laser.
I guess, what I'm getting down to is, what is my likelihood of going blind from a delayed effect from the blue light. I can't find any list of symptoms I can watch out for online. Am I seeing the early symptoms of that 24 hours or longer blindness onset? The only thing I could see as being a potential saving grace is the laser was low on batteries and was unable to burn the wallet, so I'm hoping I didn't get a full dose.
I'd like to tell my story here, and see what you all think. The other day a guy at the office brought in his 1W 445NM Arctic laser. He gave it to me to look at. Being not really at that point introduced to that powerful of a laser, I wasn't aware of all of the dangers. I knew not to look into the beam, but wasn't aware of the danger of just viewing the dot.
Upon receiving it to look at, one of the other guys holds up his black leather wallet and tells me to fire it at it, and see what it does. I aim and fire it, and within about a second, I realize that I probably shouldn't be looking at the dot, and turn away. The wallet was probably 2 to 3 feet away from me.
After I get back into my office, I started to do research into the laser, and have learned quite a bit since then. I now know I should have never have done what I did, but of course, hindsight is 20/20.
about 30 hours or so after being exposed, I noticed an after image dot was starting to appear in my right eye when I was looking at my computer screen. If I'm in a dark room, it seems to go away. I went to my optometrist, who looked into my eye and said he didn't see any burns or holes in my retina. I told him about some of the stuff I had read online about the blue light hazard, and he said he wasn't really aware about it as I was the first person to come in that had been exposed to a blue laser.
I guess, what I'm getting down to is, what is my likelihood of going blind from a delayed effect from the blue light. I can't find any list of symptoms I can watch out for online. Am I seeing the early symptoms of that 24 hours or longer blindness onset? The only thing I could see as being a potential saving grace is the laser was low on batteries and was unable to burn the wallet, so I'm hoping I didn't get a full dose.