Paintball Related Accidents.

[Sleeping Beauty]

A couple of years ago a boy lost one eye playing paintball. He was playing rec ball on a ukpsf site. He sued the company - (of course i'm not saying which company) - and the company was not found to be negligent in any way. According to what I heard, the boy grabbed the flag and lifted his mask in his excitement at which point he was shot.

 

[joe bob]

that article pisses me off!

1999! cmon! i could inderstatand if that was in the 80s but THIS!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

[JoseDominguez]

Anyone find any actual british cases with a link so I can read up?

 

[Steve Hancock]

Some of the content was acurate

They call for all paintball games to be supervised, and for adequate eye protection to be worn at all times.

We all want that, but the title and the way it was writen. Put it totaly out of context.

Every time i read about something i already know about it amazes me how wrong journalists get it. I always bear that in mind when reading anything in the papers etc.

 

[Quayler]

A quick trawl through the interweb will find these three incidents which seem to be the main documented ones that hit the headlines. Couldn't find any in the UK though?

http://www.theindependent.com/stories/070699/new_paintball06.html

http://www.lufa.ca/news/news_item.asp?NewsID=2284

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/6319390.htm



quayler

 

[Steve Hancock]

I've never concidered it necesary before but it might be worth having some kind of age limit on buying paintball guns (16). All these accidents involved kids or irresponsible teenagers. I know that would be harmful to the sport but so are these accidents., and more importantly people are getting hurt.

Mind you it's not the fact that they were young more the fact that they were stupid. I'm sure we have loads of reponsible young marker owners and a few irresponsible older ones for that matter.

On the plus side-

Legitimate paintball enthusiasts are also angry, saying the random acts give the sport a bad name.

they can tell the difference between us and the nuts now, and the writing is a bit more balenced, with fewer outragous, unsupported conclusions.

 

[Steve Hancock]

I just noticed they refer to it as a sport in there article as well.

 

[pgaglio]

This one's from the Detroit area paper.

http://www.detnews.com/2000/metro/0010/07/metro-130861.htm

Have yet to find or hear of an instance where the person(s) involved were not abusing or misusing the safety equipment and/or marker. You know if you play with matches, your house can catch on fire........

 

[npp]

I don't think anyone is going to confess to having had injuries at their parks, but as a guide liability insurance has risen in excess of 20 times in 24 months so someone has had some fairly major claims in the last two years.

The only thing is with a litigation society you don't know if these were the fault of the operator or the player and you will probably never know.

 

[Hotpoint]

Originally posted by Steve Hancock
I've never concidered it necesary before but it might be worth having some kind of age limit on buying paintball guns (16).

By Law the current age requirement for buying a marker (since it is classified as an Airgun) is already 17 in the UK

Under 17's can own one but it must be purchased by somebody else (typically parent/guardian)