Friday, January 16, 2009

Unprotected Paint Ball is a Bad Idea

This kind of falls under the "duh" category, but I thought I would share anyway. It came through the AOA First Look email update I received this morning. What are people thinking???

Researchers say paintball may cause severe, "visually devastating" eye injuries.

Canada's CTV (1/15) reported that a study published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology "is warning that" paintball "can cause severe and 'visually devastating' eye injuries." During the game, paint pellets can "fly up to speeds of 300 km per hour." While "paintball facilities" usually "require customers to wear protective eye goggles," the majority of "injuries studied by medical professionals involve injuries at home or in unsupervised and unofficial settings." For the study, researchers from the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute "analyzed the characteristics and outcomes of 36 patients treated for paintball injuries between 1998 and 2005." The investigators found that "eye injuries secondary to high-velocity paintballs can cause tremendous damage to vital ocular structures," including ruptured eyeballs and detached retinas, "often requiring extensive surgical intervention," and resulting in loss of vision. Notably, "all of the patients were injured when using paintballs in a 'non-recreational, uncontrolled setting,'" the study found.

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