How to Treat and Prevent Snow Blindness
It's Easy to Forget this When the World’s in Free Fall!
Duct tape has endless uses, one of which is the prevention of a
particular type of blindness… snow blindness. It’s
much like a sunburn of the eye. Usually not noticed until several hours
afterword, it occurs from exposure to sunlight that’s been reflected off ice,
snow, or less commonly sand and sea. Fresh snow reflects about 80% of the
sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
Symptoms include increased tears and scratchy pain; it
feels like having sand in your eyes. It’s a condition particularly
dangerous for the prepper. Pain and tears will make you functionally blind and
unable to navigate over land. It can be prevented two ways: By
wearing eye protection that blocks most of the ultraviolet radiation. Or
by making and wearing slit goggles.
Sunglasses with UV filters are not always available.
Lacking this modern convenience, Inuit peoples were able to solve the problem
by carving goggles with a thin horizontal slit. You can emulate this
design by making a similar pair out of duct tape.
Treat snow blindness by removing the person from sunlight and
covering their eyes with patches. Administer pain relief while the
patient rests. Cool wet compresses can help, but dropping lidocaine or
another anesthetic into your eyes inhibits healing. Just
as it did with the corneal abrasions we discussed in an earlier post (Click Here to Read).
The pain, copious tearing, and visual disturbances typically resolve
within 24–72 hours. Further injury can be avoided by making duct tape
glasses and wearing them whenever you are in high exposure environments.
-ThePrepperPages.com
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