Paintball Guns = Recipe For Blindness

8-o !

I'm not a paint-baller but have entertained the thought of it (as well, I have 4 growing children who may express interest in this). I know it's popular. It makes sense to wear eye protection...but yes, I could see myself removing mine (mucked up) and continue playing (in the heat of the moment) until I could clean them off. Well, after reading this...that will never happen!

This is an eye opener. No pun intended. Personally, I think you should send this off to newspapers in your surrounding area (many have email options). Either as a "Letter to the Editor" or maybe a reporter would like to print an article. Too, it would be nice if you state a permission to copy (in whole) so that other's could pass this onto their newspapers.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It's a great service to the public.

~Kate

Paint ball...I haven't done it in decades, but when I was a kid we were doing this before it was a sport... before they even had the standard equipment.

I do remember that the "guns" we had rigged up hurt like heck. You had to wear the equivalent of arctic gear to avoid serious pain (we wore motorcycle helmets, full face).
Maybe they should go back to a design that hurts a lot more when it hits. You tend to take protective equipment a lot more seriously when the projectiles leave serious welts. :)

To savas:  Unfortunately the fields keep the feet per second of the paintballs down below a certain level to avoid other injury such as broken fingers.  Dr. Kutryb you posted a great post to those with dangerous hobbies.  I broke my hand in a motorcycle accident and luckily ended up with just a bruise where my helmet was.  If I had not been wearing it, I would have had a serious head injury or worse.  When enjoying recreations it is important to use the proper protection.  More than likely it was invented and implemented because someone was seriously injured or killed.  I had to give up my profession because of a hobby and that changes lives.  Paintball can be a fun sport if played responsibly as well as many other sports and hobbies.

I recently got hit with a paitball to the head. I was wearing protective headgear which covered the eyes but left the forehead exposed. My head hurt like hell for over a week afterwards. It gave me dizzy spells. They hit with extreme force, leave bruises on the body and I shudder to think what they could do to your eyes. My advice to anyone paintballing is to make sure that they wear a protective helmet which covers both the head and the eyes and to NEVER even dream about taking it off during the game.

I have been paint balling a few times, a costly endevour at £6 per 100 paintballs, but still lots of fun, each time ive gone we had to go through nearly an hour of safety talks before we were even allowed near a paintball and it was drilled into us that we should never take our visors off while playing in the area, if anyone did so you were sent packing.
They also told us about the how a paintball will literally squish your eye, scary stuff.
Unfortunately the visors do get very messy and you cant do much to clean them in battle, rubbing the paintball mess or dirt just seems to create greese marks and make it harder to see, after a while you cant see anything and your pretty much looking through a pinhole, can get frustrating and you find yourself instictively wanting to take them off and clean them so yes it should be made clear to people the damage a paintball can do as i know you can get them almost like a toy so people can neglect on safety, they should be sold more like a shotgun for clay pigeon shooting.

Im a paintballer myself with my college team in Ireland and any place ive ever played in have strict rules on headwear, if you take it off at any point you are banned from the park for life, there is also a lecture before you start about the dangers of taking off your headwear (protective mask) its all in good fun once people understand the health and safety aspects whilst playing.

At the field I use, there are strict rules. Biggest problem seems to be younger age players who get frustrated, or believe they are protected by a tree or bunker. All players are responsible for teaching the new guys the rules, and we shout at the top of our lungs when someone is seen lifting a mask. Most 12 year olds don't make that mistake again. The balls travel at 300 feet per second and can inflict major damage. I have seen college age groups with a total disregard for ALL rules and saw 20 bounced from the field with no refunds. There are also outlaw fields where it is "cool" to play without shirts, use welding shields as masks, etc. Plus the fact that many tv shows and movies show people shooting without masks. Education is the key. Bruises heal, blindness does not.

My daughter is one of those people that have been hurt by a paintball.  In June of 2003, we were driving home in my car, my daughter was strapped into her carseat, she was 3 at the time.  Someone, whom was never caught, shot a paintball into my car window and it hit my daughter in her right eye.  We were traveling on a street at about 45 miles per hour, no one saw where it came from.  We rushed her straight to the hospital and called the police in route.  At the hospital, my daughter was screaming, not knowing what was going on, paint stuck in her eye, you couldn't even see any color in her eye, it looked black.  As her parents, we are freaking out, not knowing if she is going to lose her sight or her eye all together, no one knew.  They had to call in a specialist, as no one else knew what to do.  They had to put her in a straight-jacket to keep her from moving.  They tried to clean it out as best as they could, but didn't want to damage anything further.  For the next week, we had to keep her laying at an angle to try to drain all the built up paint, fluid and blood out of her eye.  Every morning, we had to go back to the eye specialist so he could check on her progress.  Exactly a week after the accident, she had surgery on her eye.  Her eye is still not, nor will it ever be 100% again.  Her vision changes every 6 months, so we purchase glasses every 6 months.  You can still look at her right eye, and see where they stitched her iris, it reflects back at you.  The doctor said she was lucky that her retina did not detach.  She can no longer take risk of another blow to the eye where her retina could possiblity detach.  Try explaining this to a little girl who is such a tom-boy.  She has floaters in her eye that drive her crazy, she just sees random black spots sometimes.  This has changed her life forever.

They have changed the paintball gun carrying laws in Omaha, Nebraska now because of what happened to my daughter.  You are no longer allowed to carry paintball guns assembled in your vehicle, they have to be broken down in their case.  The city council passed that law and they were able to meet Carlee too.  Carlee still remembers everything, she has not forgotten what happened.  Sometimes she tells me that "it smells like the paintball."  Some smell triggers something, I guess I will never quite understand.  Paintball guns are dangerous, especially when they are in the wrong hands.  Please be responsible and use your head.  People really do get hurt, even innocent children.

My husband is very into paintball, and at the field there are very strict rules. You wear your Mask 100% of the time on the field, if not, your kicked out. You are to walk around with a 'barrel plug' (AKA Barrel Condom) over the tip of your gun incase you accidently shoot a ball it wont go past the plug and injure anyone. The plugs are cheap like $3.00 a piece and can be bought at any paintball website, sports store that sells paintball gear and even walmart, if you dont have one, your not allowed to put the tank and/or hopper on your gun, depending on whos running the field may be both. There have been times where I was standing off on the side of the field, out of the fenced area and been holding his gun while he does something else, not knowing it was on and accidently shot it being that the triggers are so easily moved, if it werent for the plug I would have shot myself right in the foot. At the field up here you are to not put your gun volocity at more then 300 feet per second, and up to 30 balls per second being able to be shot, so if your not careful you can bruise yourself pretty badly, and more then once. I'm sure if i didnt have the plug on it, id have a couple huge bruises on my foot from it, if i was that lucky.

If your going to play, be smart about it. you can buy a barrel plug and a cheap JT mask at walmart for like 20 bucks. its not the best but believe me youll be happy you got it when your saving yourself huge amounts of medical bills and you still got your eyes. I cant tell you how many times Ive seen these guys get out to shots to the face. my husband was in a tournament where he got shot in the mask about 4 times, called out and when he turned around to walk off the field got hit about 9 times in the back of the head and then the ref put a 'sled shield' over the back of his head and we heard about another 13 bust.

I know a guy here who was playing in the woods and after the game went over to a buddys truck where the guy wanted to show him the gun, accidently pulled the trigger and shot the guy square in the eye, needless to say, he doesnt have an eye. He was too close with the speed and the length the ball was to be traveling, completely shot out his eye to the point they had to totally remove it.

this is a sport that makes little sense to me. Of course someone is going to get hurt when firing those things at other people. I would not allow my son to take part in this sport because it is an accident waiting to happen. Kids get caught up in the moment and competiton and arn't thinking about a projectile being fired at them or where that thing might strike them. I deemed this sport as too dangerous to take part in

I was a paintballer back in the day.
I got tired of explaining all of the bruises to the school social worker who thought I was being abused.
I sold my gun and I got a pretty penny.
I bought shoes, instead!
I like them better!

I used to play, I never once had the desire to play without a helmet. I have a low tolerence for pain, I guess. Either that or I am just very smart. (I doubt the latter)

never played with paint ball guns, with my background they was all real. spent alot of years shooting, and always wore eye and ear protection for the most part. a few years back , i took a 12 gauge shotgun to the face and chest from about 30 feet. over 140 pellets as estimated at the hospital. unfortunatly , one blew thru and thru my left eye. this means it went all the way thru the eye , and thru the retina. eyes can be fixed, lenses can be fixed, retinas cannot be fixed, so i had the left eye removed a month and a half after shooting.
I just played catch with my 5 year old son, HE catches better then me!! playing basketball is pretty much jus blind luck now (pun intended), and forget about swatting a fly with a fly swater!!
my point is this, we dont always listen to doctors like the fine gentleman that wrote this article, so listen to someone that has lived the last 2 years with one eye, ALWAYS  wear you eye gear when shooting any weapon , or nail guns for that matter. It only takes about one breath to become blind ...

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i am a HUGE fan of paintball. of course i dont know a lot of girls like me but the guys and i  LOVE to paintball and show off our welts. its just a fun game, the hunt, trying to find the opposite team. hiding behind trees dashing from flying paintballs. its thrilling honestly. but from now on i will get on anyones case if they take off there protective gear. PROMISE. i really love my big blue eyes and i would hate to lose them.

Paintball is a great sport.  I love it.  Like many sports, it has the potential to do some serious damage, especially if the players are morons.  But let's be serious, if you respect the equipments and fellow players, you won't get hurt.  The problem is too many players never take the time to learn safety.  For this reason, I always play with my own private groups with no walk-ons.  Mask / google on at all times, if it fogs up, keep it on and provide cover fire until that one game is over.  Play games at your level.  Don't walk on a field if you are a beginner and everybody else communicate with radios and shoot custom paintball markers with electronic full automatic triggers.  Fingers off trigger in close combat so you don't shoot someone point blank inches away.  Use common sense and everyone goes home happy.