Citation

Brown D, Collard B, McLennan A. Br. Dent. J. 2019; 227(3): 177.

Affiliation

Exeter, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, British Dental Association)

DOI

10.1038/s41415-019-0626-7

PMID

31399654

Abstract

Sir, a 30-year-old carpenter attended the A&E department complaining of a laceration to his cheek and an altered bite following a nail gun misfiring at work. On clinical examination, he had a 1 cm linear laceration to his right cheek and was unable to occlude his teeth. Radiographs revealed an 8 cm nail traversing the maxilla.

It is estimated that nail gun injuries are responsible for 37,000 A&E attendances each year and reports state that the number of injuries are increasing.1 A number of these cases resulted in significant morbidities and could have been prevented by improved personal protective equipment. Current guidelines recommend wearing hard hats and eye protection only, when operating a nail gun.2 We would suggest that these guidelines could be revised to include full-face protection due to the severity of related injuries ...

Language: en