Man Dies while filling Paintball Marker with Air

[Liz]

Originally posted by JoseDominguez

the safety practices in place are great: If your bottles are checked regularly, you wear gloves when you fill with C02 and site owners continue to set up Co2 in open spaces then you'll be fine.
(it's the dodgy player filling an eight year old soda-stream bottle from a bulk tank nicked from a local pub in his bedroom you gotta watch).

That's the whole point - there's an awful lot of people out there who DON'T treat the gasses we use with enough respect. I think the most common one I see is experienced people, those who really should know better, filling CO2 without gloves & risking freeze burns.
I make no apologies if I've scared anyone, as long as it means they will now take proper precautions.

 

[JoseDominguez]

That's because the pressure of the co2 in the tank will increase due to the effects of heat. (pressure is directly proportional to temparature). As a result, any sealed container which is heated is a potential bomb, a 4500 air tank is already under enough pressure to blow a wall out, you don't need to heat it up.
So, before you write fool on anyone's tombstone ...check your facts.
The facts are: Co2 gains it's push when it changes back to it's gaseous state, air needs to be at a higher pressure as it doesn't have the same properties as co2, so in a normal tank i.e. not trapped in a burning vehicle air has a lot more explosive power than co2. So, basically a failed co2 tank is nasty, a failed air tank is disasterous.
As for replacing a burst disc......that's stupid, the burst disc is set to fail just over the bottles test pressure, whereas the bottle itself won't fail until a much higher pressure (i'm not saying it in case someone blows themselves up overfilling). It's just like replacing the fuse in a plug with a paperclip.

 

[JohnJ]

To get CO2 or air to inject into your skin is far from easy but not impossible.
You would have to apply some serious resistance in order to inject yourself and that would include putting up with some intense needle like pain.
As far as the tank blowing goes, the liklihood of you having an injury is related to the respect you give the equipment.

Get it tested, visually inspect it before and after use, ensure that its suitable for the job and used correctly = low risk

Knock it about, overfill it, put incompatable parts with it = high risk

Its like everything else in life, if you look after it - it will look after you (except tigers...oh and alligators...maybe scorpians, actually quite a lot of things now I think about it...)

JJ

 

[How]

To get CO2 or air to inject into your skin is far from easy but not impossible.

not according to the experts, but if you kow better the you can teach the marshall training course.

 

[FAMINE]

If its that easy how, please find some documentation relating to ballers actually doing this.
In 15 odd years of paintball i have never heard of this happening once, but feel free to prove me wrong.

And if u can find a case, then work that out to how many bottles have been filled in 15 years of balling and then continue with the scare monger thread, In all honesty mate its like anything..

Treat it right and it will be safe
Abuse it and suffer the slim chance of consequence.

Frankly it goes to show how little some people on this board know, and how much is just something they heard blown outa proportion. Yes the UKPSF may have said that on a course, in all honesty what was that backed up by? Maybe there to just highlight a point without being fact?


I tell ya what, now i am in full rant mode, I just wish a load of people on hear would shut the hell up with all the i heard he heard threads. If you got something to say, back it up with FACT.
If ya cant be bothered to find the facts then its all just rumours.
So why do we still get the DOT/HSE debate, the fire mode debate etc etc etc.
If someone actually approached the goverment and said.
OK this is who we are, legislate us. Then we could all know once and for all.
If it meant fire are certs for us all, then the more the better. Keep markers outa hands of fools, and if the young uns suffer, then its us old uns jobs to set up YGs clubs where we hold markers for em.

Grrrrrrr

Im gaggin for a fight now

 

[crom-dubh]

Well pointed out famine.

Solid evidence is the best way to prove a point. Or just threaten people with a banning if you are a mod. That seems to work too

 

[crom-dubh]

BTW I tried to back up the argument about the firearms laws with lists of the government web sites, but people still didnt wanna know.

 

[JoseDominguez]

I read the fire arms stuff, and you were right.
As for the co2 and air bit, everything I've said is a scientific fact, it's just VERY,VERY unlikely to happen, for gods sake, if you eat enough marzipan that can kill you, but they don't ban the stuff. Look at alcohol, used sensibly you're OK, but too much and you're knackered but that doesn't get banned.
The thread was just discussing stuff, it wasn't a rant. Current legislation is pretty good and well kept tanks are safe, think about it, you travel to tournaments in a half ton killing machine that can kill a dozen people after the slightest lapse in judgement, silly mistake or minor mechanical failure...... I don't see anyone rushing out to get cars banned.
So, keep playing, check your kit and treat it with respect, as for the facts, well co2 causes nausea and headaches at about 3%, can knock you out by 10% and it's slightly heavier than air--so once you're out cold you're breathing it in and will die of asphyxia (the unconsciousness sneaks up on you too-----very little warning) unless someone comes and drags you clear.......this is unlikely as site operators know the regulations and don't leave the stuff in enclosed spaces anyway! so CO2 is dangerous FACT but only if you don't respect the stuff.
By the way, I'm a science teacher, so I'm not just repeating things I half understand.

 

[pupster01]

HOW


speak to you site owner a think you will find you miss hurd its not a 7OZ tank its one of the BOC bulk tanks (yes i have already spoken to them) the risk isnt the force of the explosion though that at short range would cause you more that a few problem. It the shrapnal thats the issue there.

As for the fireservice comment i think that's to warn them in case of fire. Im fairly sure that if you have a shunt and you need to be cut free they wont leave you there to rot because you have a soda stream bottle in the boot.

Again i think these issues your raising are more towards the industrial size bottles used to bulk fill.

Now go away research your facts come back with relevent proof or end up being ignore

PS if you actually read my posts you would have realise my points on birstys was exactly the same as you side. I just used a little more sense and didnt tell people how bypass them. so well done for a tip on making thing less safe

 

[Rabies]

Originally posted by Liz
I think the most common one I see is experienced people, those who really should know better, filling CO2 without gloves & risking freeze burns.

Guilty as charged And if I ever gave myself CO2 burns as a result, I'd have nobody to blame but myself.

What a lot of people have missed is that venting gas isn't the real danger (though, as Liz points out, a slow CO2 leak in a car can be very bad news - and prolonged exposure to CO2 can cause brain damage through oxygen starvation, but it's not as harmful as carbon monoxide, for example.)

Most of us have seen a burst disc blow, which is pretty but not very dangerous. That's the point of burst discs - to fail safely before the pressure causes catastrophic failure of the tank.

The dangerous thing is when the tank itself fails, if it is severly weakened or the safety mechanisms have been circumvented (wrong burst disc, etc.) When a tank fails it acts like a hand grenade, launching shrapnel in all directions with great force (yes, enough to flatten buildings in some cases, definately enough to kill.) Probably none of us have ever seen this, and hopefully none of us ever will. Thankfully, it's rare enough that when it does happen it is newsworthy.

The reason that we have stringent safety guidelines regarding bottle testing, HSE approval, filling procedures and so on is to prevent incidents like this ever occuring. Nothing we can do will prevent occasional freak accidents in anything we do, but 99% of all injuries and deaths will result from improper following of the laws and guidelines. These guidelines are not here to spoil your fun, but to protect your safety. Respect them, and treat your equipment with respect, and no harm should ever come to you.