Any sports activities fan will inform you that two championship-winning celebratory mainstays work in conjunction: Bottles are popped, corks fly, alcohol sprays—and goggles shield everybody’s eyes from all of it. We noticed the New York Liberty put on them after their huge win, and this week, one baseball group will win the World Collection, a victory they’ll little question cap off with a bathe of one thing crisp, dry, bubbly, and out of my value vary. Which makes us surprise: Is Champagne—and its sometimes explosive opening course of—so harmful that athletes (or your self) ought to don basically bulletproof eye-ware when the celebration begins?

Nicely, in a phrase: Sure.

The largest hazard? “The cork’s like a projectile,” says Ann Arthur, MD, an ophthalmologist at New York Metropolis’s Mount Sinai Hospital. “If it flies out, it could actually trigger loads of accidents that may be considerably gentle, considerably severe, or it might even change the construction of the attention.”

Which tracks, as a result of in line with the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Champagne corks can pop from bottles at speeds as much as 50 miles per hour. “When you’ve got a projectile that’s going at 30 or 40 or 50 miles per hour, it could actually theoretically shatter the attention,” says Dr. Arthur. Different potential accidents embody: corneal abrasion, angle recession glaucoma, cataracts, and fractures across the orbital bone or eye socket. Briefly, you can lose imaginative and prescient.

And it’s extra probably than you’d assume: In line with a 2005 research, 26% of these injured by Champagne corks remained legally blind. And whereas Dr. Arthur emphasised that Champagne-related accidents will not be one thing she’s extensively handled, they’re definitely doable.

Main League Baseball has had their fair proportion of close-calls. In 2018, the cork of present Los Angeles Dodger (then a member of the Boston Crimson Sox) Mookie Betts errantly fired right into a reporter’s neck (she was advantageous). Six years prior, San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum was blasted within the eye with a cork—he was additionally advantageous.

“The largest factor that we emphasize is prevention as a result of—whereas these accidents aren’t quite common—they are often fairly traumatic,” says Dr. Arthur. With regards to eye safety, the gold customary are goggles made out of polycarbonate that totally wraps across the eyes and cheeks. So, yeah, the goggles are a good suggestion.

They’ll additionally prevent from irritating your eyes with alcohol—a problem Dr. Arthur recommends treating with an easy motion. “In the event you get any form of chemical in your eye, the very first thing you wish to do is irrigate it out of your eye,” she says, “even when it means simply placing your head beneath a faucet, you wish to rinse it out.”

Now if you happen to’re studying this, you’re in all probability not susceptible to being struck by an expert sports activities group’s cork, and if you’re—can we’ve tickets? However hopefully you’re nonetheless popping some sort of glowing wine someday quickly as a result of, properly, it’s enjoyable. And while you do: Watch out. Or put on goggles.