the article
Bee Gee paintballing the town red
By ANNA COCK in Miami
18jan03
MUSIC was his life but the growing sport of paintball had become Maurice Gibb's consuming passion.
By the time of his death last weekend, the sport was an obsession for the 53-year-old Bee Gee who owned a paintball store, ran his own team and had become well-known on the international tournament circuit.
Gibb's love of the sport – a sophisticated game of combat simulation using guns loaded with paint – was even reflected in his funeral this week, where his team jacket hung on the walls of the Riverside Funeral Chapel during the service.
Members of his Royal Rat Rangers team were among the mourners, as well as many others linked to the sport.
"Paintball was 24/7 for him – all we'd talk about was paintball," Gibb's friend Frederic Renucci told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
"It was a different world for him. People treated him like one of the guys and he loved it," said Mr Renucci, who runs Gibb's store, Commander Mo's Paintball Shop, in North Miami.
Gibb opened the store last year as paintball became a priority in his life. He played every Sunday at a field in Miami, sometimes fitting games in during the week, and took the Royal Rat Rangers to tournaments as far afield as the UK and Las Vegas.
And it was not just about sport – it was the social outlet that it offered.
Mr Renucci said he remembered Gibb saying that the camaraderie he enjoyed on a paintball trip to Las Vegas was one of the happiest times of his life.
While his family did not play paintball, they often accompanied Gibb to tournaments and have already pledged to keep Commander Mo's open.
The name of Gibb's team, the Royal Rat Rangers, symbolised two aspects of his life in which he took great pride.
"Royal" was a reference to the Commander of the British Empire bestowed upon all three Bee Gees by the Queen for their services to music.
The "rat" relates to a Miami sobriety support centre, the Little River Club, where those who won their battles against alcoholism are known as Little River Rats.
Gibb beat his addiction there during the 1990s and made some valued friends, including Mr Renucci.
It was that friendship which formed the basis for Gibb's intense three-year involvement in the sport.
Meanwhile, autopsy results released yesterday revealed Gibb died because his small intestine twisted on itself, creating a blockage and cutting off the blood to his bowel.
The autopsy did not give a cause of the twisting, but said Gibb was born with a malformed intestine that experts said could lead to life-threatening kinks.
Gibb, 53, died at Mt Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach last Saturday, three days after emergency abdominal surgery and a heart attack.
Gibb's brothers have criticised the medical care he received.
The autopsy said doctors removed a section of his small intestine, indicating surgeons found a section of dead bowel – which means Gibb was in grave danger when he was taken into surgery.
"If you get to that point you have a life-threatening situation on your hands," Dr Jeffrey Raskin, interim chief of gastroenterology at the University of Miami medical school, said.
The autopsy also found a 60 per cent blockage of a blood vessel that feeds the heart muscle itself.
nice to see his other talents recognised . he is a sad loss to paintball
