Preventionof Blindness Society...

Prevention of Sight Loss

Danger of Paintballs

Backyard PAINTBALL play can lead to serious eyeinjuries. As the sport of paintball moves beyond organized games on regulated fields,paint guns - called markers - are becoming a leading cause of serious eye injury. Thenumber of gamers playing this high intensity version of "capture the flag"increased tenfold over the past decade to 6.4 million in 1999. The game is attractinghordes of young enthusiasts who can purchase guns, including semiautomatics, at discountstores like Wal-mart and K-Mart. Most gamers are responsible, yet unsupervised backyardplay, "drive-by-shootings", and accidents in the home are on the rise. TheConsumer Products Safety Commission estimates that 2000 paintball-related eye injurieswere treated in emergency rooms from 1997 through 1999. Many more cases are seen innon-emergency settings such as doctors’ offices. The paint guns are assumed to betoys, but they are worse than BB guns. Two thirds of patients permanently lost vision inone eye. In a soon-to-be published study of 292 paintball-related eye injuries, about halfleft the victims permanently blind in one eye. Other injuries include cataracts, retinaltears and detachments, and damage to the lens and optic nerve. The speed and size of thepaintballs make them very destructive, as they fit perfectly within the eye socket,without being cushioned by the bony rim. Many of the injuries are avoidable. There in apolycarbonate paintball mask that offers protection and it is recommended that these beused. Be forewarned that eye injuries can still occur when players remove their maskbecause they are fogged up, to wipe off splattered paint, or because they thought theywere in a "time-out" area. As yet, there are no federal laws and few state rulesto regulate the sale or use of paintball guns

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