Health and Safety Uses
Modern balaclavas are used in outdoor winter sports activities such as skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, running or winter bicycling to help protect the face from the cold wind and maintain warmth.
Motorcyclists also wear one under their safety helmets for similar reasons; balaclavas also help to keep the inner lining of the helmet clean.
Most commonly firefighters will wear a fire resistant balaclava, otherwise known as a Nomex Hood, when responding to a fire call along with their SCBA and Bunker Gear. This balaclava covers the head and neck, with an open face; typically covered by the mask portion of the SCBA. This is used to help minimize the risk of potentially fatal burns to the upper back, neck, scalp and face.
Racing drivers must wear balaclavas made of fire-retardant material underneath their crash helmets in order to improve protection in case of a fire following an accident, and commonly cover the nose and mouth to reduce inhalation of smoke and fumes. Dragster-racing drivers usually wear balaclavas which have just two separate eye holes because of the increased fire risk.
In China, balaclavas are even used as sun protection.
Read more about this topic: Balaclava (clothing)
Famous quotes containing the words health and, health and/or safety:
“Give a man health and a course to steer; and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s happy or not.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The first year was critical to my assessment of myself as a person. It forced me to realize that, like being married, having children is not an end in itself. You don’t at last arrive at being a parent and suddenly feel satisfied and joyful. It is a constantly reopening adventure.”
—Anonymous Mother. From the Boston Women’s Health Book Collection. Quoted in The Joys of Having a Child, by Bill and Gloria Adler (1993)
“The Declaration [of Independence] was not a protest against government, but against the excess of government. It prescribed the proper role of government, to secure the rights of individuals and to effect their safety and happiness. In modern society, no individual can do this alone. So government is not a necessary evil but a necessary good.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)