“You’ll poke your eye out, kid.” That’s what Santa told little Ralphie when he wanted a Red Ryder Air Rifle for Christmas. This unforgettable line from A Christmas Story could be appropriate in the world of paintballing, too. If you fore go eye protection, you run the risk of severe damage to your vision. The game is fun and thrilling, but you need to keep yourself out of harm’s way. It’s just not worth the risk of losing your sight. No one’s invulnerable – just ask those who have lost their vision to the sport because they weren’t protected.
The game is popular in Canada, and the doctors at the Montreal Children’s Hospital report that some of the most serious eye injuries they’ve seen have been the consequence of playing paintball at home without goggles. Most people who take a direct hit to the eye do not fully recover their eyesight; legal blindness or permanent impairment is the typical outcome. Why is the consequence so severe? With pellets traveling at speeds of 186 miles per hour, it’s simply impossible for the soft squamous cells of the eyeballs to absorb that kind of impact.
Eye injuries can occur not only during a game, but also as a result of horseplay or intentional acts of viciousness outside of competition. A 2008 study in Graefe’s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology suggests that most people are ignorant of the serious consequences of using paintball guns as weapons, and many people aren’t educated about the importance of safety precautions. If no one supervises, the risk goes up considerably.
Fortunately, trauma can be prevented during games with paintball goggles and common sense. This is a non-negotiable issue. They need to be worn, and they need to be worn at all times. They cannot be taken off for even a few minutes, because that may be the moment that an accident occurs