Fatal Paintball?
- Thread starter pb-afroman
- Start date
I think the "over reaction" bit is because it involved a paintball gun and not becuuse of the tragedy of the woman being killed in front of children. I agree with Jose in that you can't really over react to something that tragic. But heck people get gunned down in the US and people barely raise an eye brow. I see this as a case of yet another ill-informed media once again just desperately trying to milk yet another story where none exists.
If the same tragic accident had been the result of something as inane as the head of a hammer flying off as someone was knocking a nail in and it killed her it might have made the local news in her home town and that would have been it. I think it would be unlikely that a national station would run a headline like "Fatal DIY - There is a hidden and potentially deadly risk posed by hammers"
I mean bloody hell, there is a hidden and potentially deadly risk in just about anything you care to name if not handled properly. On that score however Jose is again completely right. Paintball kit is dangerous and there are people who don't treat it with the respect it deserves, but I think it's wrong and a liitle pathetic to be honest, for the media in this case to try and tie the death to paintball.
A fifteen year old kid wouldn't have been wrongly unscrewing a gas bottle from a valve if he wasn't playing paintball....... that's the problem.......... at an average rec-day you have say 60 players........... most of which a have never played before, they are completely unaware that they are carrying a concussion bomb/rocket launcher each.............. we only warn them about keeping their goggles on. "The only danger in paintball is losing an eye, this will not happen if you wear your goggles" oh, that and the large canister of compressed gas strapped to your gat.
At work I wouldn't let (couldn't legally let) any of the kids I teach handle a compressed gas tank........... however, come the weekend when I marshalled I would gleefully hand over 60 of them some to kids four years younger and encourage them to run about with them. ( I was teaching mainstream then)
Incidents are building up now, paintball is getting more popular and more people are being exposed to it.
How often have you stood next to someone and caught them about to make a silly mistake................ say unscrewing a C02 bottle because "it was loose" or even unscrewing a fill nipple on a pressurised tank when they forgot it had air in it?
At two tourneys this year I've seen two near misses which resulted in a couple of seconds of shock then everyone had a laugh........ alternatively it could have been one bottle rocket and a blinding/death.
I've been reading the news and following some of the US threads on this one......... lots of criticism to the site and "it had to happen sooner or later" I don't know if this is true but we need to start taking our kit more seriously....... I bet everyone can think of a near miss they have had or witnessed ....... we aren't the safest sport out there.....but we are sure as hell the luckiest.
So far.
Edit
Just an extra bit.......... to Hatt......... not everyone takes safety as seriously as you and Gillie, some don't even come close, your site is run around safety and you love paintball......... you'll do anything to protect/promote it............. not everyone out there does, and to some it's still an easy money spinner. I've seen things that would make you weep mate, that or hit someone with that "hidden danger hammer"
. 6E is a model of safety, I've seen the opposite, more than once.
At work I wouldn't let (couldn't legally let) any of the kids I teach handle a compressed gas tank........... however, come the weekend when I marshalled I would gleefully hand over 60 of them some to kids four years younger and encourage them to run about with them. ( I was teaching mainstream then)
Incidents are building up now, paintball is getting more popular and more people are being exposed to it.
How often have you stood next to someone and caught them about to make a silly mistake................ say unscrewing a C02 bottle because "it was loose" or even unscrewing a fill nipple on a pressurised tank when they forgot it had air in it?
At two tourneys this year I've seen two near misses which resulted in a couple of seconds of shock then everyone had a laugh........ alternatively it could have been one bottle rocket and a blinding/death.
I've been reading the news and following some of the US threads on this one......... lots of criticism to the site and "it had to happen sooner or later" I don't know if this is true but we need to start taking our kit more seriously....... I bet everyone can think of a near miss they have had or witnessed ....... we aren't the safest sport out there.....but we are sure as hell the luckiest.
So far.
Edit
Just an extra bit.......... to Hatt......... not everyone takes safety as seriously as you and Gillie, some don't even come close, your site is run around safety and you love paintball......... you'll do anything to protect/promote it............. not everyone out there does, and to some it's still an easy money spinner. I've seen things that would make you weep mate, that or hit someone with that "hidden danger hammer"
. 6E is a model of safety, I've seen the opposite, more than once.