Worried About Hearing Damage After Brief Chainsaw Exposure at 12 Meters While Passing By

[Micheal2025]

Hello everyone, I need some help. About two weeks ago, I was outside riding a golf cart for a few seconds when I heard a chainsaw to my right, across the street, about 12 meters away. I was exposed for a brief moment, then quickly plugged my ears with my fingers by pressing the small ear flaps next to the ear canal.

On the map, the red square shows the source of the chainsaw, and the white circle shows where I was passing by while it was operating for a few seconds.

Will this short exposure to the chainsaw at that distance damage my hearing without protection?

 

[Sonia554]

Highly unlikely, especially in an open space and only for a few seconds. Did you experience any effects after the exposure? If not, it's time to stop worrying about it.

I've only been on these boards a short time, but one thing that stands out to me is the high level of anxiety many posters have around everyday sounds. I wonder if that hypervigilance is a big reason some people don't get better. Part of rebalancing and overcoming tinnitus and hyperacusis is managing stress responses to sound.

You may be unintentionally teaching your brain that sound isn't safe, which could actually create a spike or prolong recovery through the stress response. I developed tinnitus from a loud noise exposure in January, and since then I've been around leaf blowers, chainsaws, construction vehicles, tornado siren testing, loud car engines, and screaming children. None of those exposures caused a new spike. Our ears and brains can handle loud sounds as long as the exposure isn't extended or explosively loud.

But if you overreact, your nervous system interprets the sound as dangerous and tries to protect you. These exposures are going to happen. The best thing to do is leave the area as quickly as possible, then remind yourself that you're safe and shift your focus to other thoughts. Don't ruminate.

 

[Micheal2025]

I've noticed that every time I'm exposed to loud sounds, which isn't very often, I try to talk but my ears get fatigued from the vibrations of my voice. My ears hurt for a while and force me to stop talking. It usually takes me at least a few weeks to recover.

Does anyone else experience this?

 

[kingsfan]

I believe a chainsaw at 12m would be around 70dB. Probably not a problem if you don't have hyperacusis.

 

[Maruashen]

I think @Sonia554 is very right in his or her answer, but sometimes when you're down the rabbit hole, it's hard to tell yourself "it's fine," especially when you've recently had damage from something you maybe thought was safe.

When I briefly googled how loud a chainsaw can be, it seems it can be anywhere between 100 and 125 dBC near the operator, which is about 1 meter away from the source. Every time you double the distance, you get a decibel reduction of about 6 dB, so let's use 115 dBC as an average.

1 m: 115 dB
2 m: 109 dB
4 m: 103 dB
8 m: 97 dB
12 m: about 94 dB

On top of that, you also need to account for wind, temperature, and objects in the way, and we don't know whether the chainsaw was pointing its loudest sound in your direction. To make an average estimate, I think you were very briefly exposed to roughly 85 dBC for a few seconds.

You can always find charts online that show how many decibels are considered "safe." To me, they seem pretty extreme, because I have a feeling my ears can't tolerate that much noise without getting damaged. However, they usually say something like this, meaning what ears can tolerate without damage:

85 dB: 8 hours
88 dB: 4 hours
91 dB: 2 hours

By looking at those numbers, we can clearly see that your ears would not get damaged from that chainsaw exposure, even though it felt loud.

Even if we take those charts and reduce the limits by, say, 15 dB because we have very sensitive ears, we still get:

70 dB: 8 hours
73 dB: 4 hours
76 dB: 2 hours
79 dB: 1 hour
82 dB: 30 minutes
85 dB: 15 minutes
88 dB: 7.5 minutes
91 dB: 3.75 minutes

And you were only exposed for a few seconds.