Action Eyewear

Crews Triwear safety glasses saved the eyesight, and perhaps even the life, of U.S. soldier Doug Alvarez while he was serving in Iraq.

Alvarez worked as a civilian with the City of Clearwater Public Utilities in Clearwater, FL. Not long ago, he was deployed to
Iraq, where he served as a Navy Seabee.

Alvarez took his Triwear safety glasses with him to the war the same safety glasses he normally wore at work.On May 2, 2004 around 2pm, Alvarez and his truck team assembled to be briefed for their next mission.

Shortly after their mission began, Alvarez’s unit came under mortar attack. The firstmortar landed approximately 150 meters from Alvarez, and the second landed just within his group. The blast knocked Doug to the ground. Though conscious, he was not able to move under his own strength. Alvarez was flown to Baghdad for operations before beingflown to the Naval Medical Hospital at Bethesda, Maryland. Hesustained multiple wounds, mostly to the right side of his body.Pieces of shrapnel wounded his forehead and jaw, and wounded his abdomen in two places. Shrapnel also penetrated Alvarez’s right thigh, his knees, his right shin, and his right ankle.

His second toe was shattered and two other toes on his right foot were wounded. That day Alvarez’s unit sustained 38 casualties; 18 were flown out and 5 died in the attack.After he returned home, Alvarez learned that one of his friends had recovered something from the day of the mortar attack. Imagine the soldier’s surprise when he opened a package containing his Crews safety glasses! The glasses had been blown from his face during the attack, and Alvarez was astonished to see why. His Crews protective eyewear stopped a large piece of shrapnel from penetrating his eye!

Scott Oster, Alvarez’s supervisor at Clearwater Public Utilities,summed it up well: “The only thing that saved his eye and probably a big shot to his head was the Good Lord and his Crews safety glasses.“When I saw those glasses for the first time,”Alvarez said, “I felt damn lucky. I hope that no one is ever that near to a mortar attack again, but if they are, I hope a pair of Crews glasses will do for them what they did for me.”