Frightening photo illustrates why construction workers always wear hardhats

[Why you should always wear a hardhat. See the full photo below/Reddit/gijsr]

A photo posted online illustrates in rather chilling detail why workers on construction sites must always wear hardhats.

In the photo, posted to the website Reddit on Tuesday, a yellow hardhat can be seen held in someone’s outstretched hand. It’s an ordinary looking hardhat, the type you’d see workers wearing at at pretty much any construction site, except for one compelling detail: the thick metal square that is jutting out the side of it.

Take one look at the photo and the backstory is clear. Some sort of metal building component fell from above and sliced a good inch into the hardhat before getting wedged there. Were this worker not wearing a helmet, it would have sliced into his or her head.

[Why you should always wear a hardhat/Reddit/gijsr]

The photo makes a compelling case for protective headgear, and commenters on the post agreed.

Reddit user De3amon wrote:

“I would carry that to every site if I had it. I always kinda doubted how useful my hard hat would be against this very situation as seen in OPs picture.”

Another commenter by the name of Tradesman pointed out that this image is far from the only one of its kind:

“OSHA officer at a camp I worked at had a wall with a bunch of gloves with electrical burns, smocks with huge cuts, helmets like this, etc nailed to it. Basically a wall of PPE that actually saved someone from a serious injury.”

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.

So lets recap what we’ve learned about yellow safety helmets today. Do they look cool? No, sir. Could they save your life? Absolutely.