A surgeon from Australia has warned everyone against wearing high-visibility jackets in daylight after he treated a patient who received intense burns from the vest’s reflective strip.
The victim, an environmental engineer, rushed to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital’s accident and emergency department after getting an excruciating red rash on his back.
The 40-year-old had worked the whole day outdoors in the sun and noticed a painful red rash on his back while undressing at night.
After examination, Dr. Iona Vlad found out that the rash was actually a mark of a first-degree burn.
Writing about the case in the Australian Medical Journal, Dr. Vlad said: “The patient… was required to wear (the shirts) throughout his working day (and) also reported that the high visibility tape on his shirt often becomes extremely hot when he works out in the sun.
“He occasionally has to change position so the shirt does not touch his skin in that area.”
However, this is the very first case of its type so far and before it, no one never heard of workers getting first-degree burns due to a reflective strip.
While there’s no chance of anything like that happening in the colder countries any time soon, residents of the equatorial regions need to watch out for it.
The case might not be a life-threatening one but is surely a very painful one. Dr. Vlad treated this particular case by Aloe Vera cream and oral painkillers.
She further wrote in the journal: “Retro-reflective tape is used on work clothing to increase the wearer’s visibility to others, especially in the dark.
“It usually consists of minute glass beads or prismatic elements encapsulated in a transparent film, which reflect light back towards its source.”
According to Dr. Vlad, the makers of high-vis jackets need to modify the design to avoid the recurrence of such events.
She said: “Manufacturers should consider designing shirts that decrease direct contact between retro-reflective tape and skin, potentially by increasing the number or thickness of cloth layers under it.”
It is a good thing to wear high-vis jackets at night but it might not be a very good idea to wear them in the daylight.
And, by the way, if you cannot see a person in the clear daylight, it is highly probable that you’d need a pair of new eyes before being able to see the reflective strip either.
Replaced!