Woman killed by paintball marker tank

[FutureMagOwner]

anti syphon tube i do believe it is.

[Smoke]

While this is unfortunate Calvin, I don't forsee this as being the death of our sport.

People didn't stop buying SUV's and Firestone tires when people started dying (rollovers, crap tires, etc.), nor were either banned. I agree that quality in marker tanks is very important, and after this hopefully manufacturers will get the hint that they need to increase their safety.

Like I said, unfortunate as it may be, paintball will live on.

[Beemer]

specs

Kinda like a thread a while back about torque specs on regs and tanks
What I heard is "it dont matter just tighten as tight as you can with wrench" the pressure will keep the tank from unscrewing from the reg.[ya right]

An uneducated uninformed consumer is a companies best friend.
An uneducated uninformed player is the games worst nightmare.

just a thought but why dont they have the tank reg and bottle threading the other way around

Reverse thread what a concept

[Jack & Coke]

very tragic... I'm sad and I feel sorry for the kid and his family. R.I.P.

[Mindflux]

I dont see any remnants of loctite on that at all :|

[Jack & Coke]

Glenn Palmer over at POG writes:

Originally posted by GP@PPS


Just as a point of information...

DOT specs do not require "loktite".

Torque spec is 50 ft pounds dry or 35 ft pounds of torque with thread locker sealant.

My guess is that someone did the anti-siphon and scewed the valve into the tank only hand tight.

[riooso]

I saw a news report and the bottle was sitting in the table with very clean threads. You could see how the bottle had been unscrewed from the pin valve assembly. It is unfortunate that this had to happen.

R

[Mindflux]

Originally posted by Jack & Coke
Glenn Palmer over at POG writes:

Interesting.

Well I installed an anti-syphon on my bottle the other week, I used Blue 252 on it and wrenched the valve back on. People need to use their brain.

[Jack & Coke]

from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4297031

...An El Dorado County mother throwing a birthday party for her son and a friend has been killed by a malfunctioning paintball gun, according to authorities.


Investigators said a 16-year-old began disassembling his paintball gun at the paintball complex north of Placerville as Monday's birthday party was wrapping up. In an instant, the brass safety fitting that secures the high-pressure air canister to the gun malfunctioned, shooting the air canister toward Colette Controis, according to investigators.

"When it was launched, it was like a torpedo. And it struck the woman in the back of the head as she stood about 8 feet away. She died instantly," said El Dorado County Sheriff's Department spokesman Lt. Kevin House.

Controis' death was witnessed by over 30 children and parents.


The owner of the Placerville paintball store affiliated with the paintball complex said he had never heard of such a malfunction ever happening before. And he said the malfunctioning canister did not come from his store.

El Dorado County Sheriff's investigators are calling the death a clear accident, and no criminal conduct is suspected from anyone involved...

[nerobro]

Well.... You guys are missing somethign else. Pin valves are supposed to be foolproof. They have a vent in them. About 1/4 to 1/3 the way down the threads. So that there's suddenly a 1/16" hole int he tank when you try to unscrew it. The tank should have vented almost imediately. I dont' see evidance of that hole. Without that hole, stuff like this can happen.

I think it's time to sue the valve manufacturer.

[hitech]

BTW, this is not the first time someone has been hit by a CO2 bottle being unscrewed from the pin valve. The other time (that I know of) it "only" removed the bottom jaw of the person standing behind the bottle. At the very next tournament EVERYONE had to have their bottles loctited before they were allowed to use them.

Now, this is a MUCH bigger deal. Someone died. However, unscrewing of a bottle has happened before.

[hitech]

Originally posted by nerobro
Well....They have a vent in them. About 1/4 to 1/3 the way down the threads. So that there's suddenly a 1/16" hole in the tank when you try to unscrew it.

I have some old pin valves that do not have the hole. I'm assuming they added those after the first accident. I wonder if that hole is a requirement?

[Tom Sparkman]

Originally posted by Dryden
Second, wouldn't the pressure in the tank be enough to hold the bottle and reg together alone?

You would either have to apply a tremendous amount of force to unscrew a pressurized bottle from the reg, or have a bottle that has severely damaged threads.

Since it's a CO2 bottle, the pressure in the bottle is the same as the pressure in the gun - what holds it on is the type of threads and how much it is torqued on.

Tom

[Dryden]

Originally posted by hitech
I have some old pin valves that do not have the hole. I'm assuming they added those after the first accident. I wonder if that hole is a requirement?

Yes. I've got 7oz tanks going back 15 years that don't have the blow-off hole in them. The problem though is that this has been pretty standard for about 6 or 7 years now (the other accident mentioned occured 10 years ago). Which means, if the valve didn't have this fail safe, it should not have been in service, since the serviceable life had passed by DOT guidelines.

I think the field owner could be in for a battle if it's found that he filled a faulty, outdated tank.

The problem here, I think, isn't an issue with paintball at all - I don't think the game is in ANY danger by this one tragic occurance. The problem lies in the lack of a DOT regulation that allows consumers to purchase and install aftermarket valves and regulators themselves.

This is something that should only be done by qualified persons.

I think a solution could be to have a specific type of tamper-proof tape that is affixed across the seam after assembly. The tape could have something to the effect of

"Warning: if this label is torn or removed ... yada yada yada"

The real issue here is the lack of information available to new players. A warning label wouldn't solve the problem (God knows we don't need any more warning labels either), but clearly new players need some avenue for education.

[FutureMagOwner]

Re: specs

Originally posted by Beemer
Reverse thread what a concept

just curious because its hard to tell are you being condecending/sarcastic to that or saying thats a good idea, yatta yatta

yeah while stuff like this is rare it is definantly preventable. simple education can prevent this kinda accident, it'd be nice if when stores sell tanks and guns they explain the dangers seriously and how to identify them and and seriously and heavily note stuff like this at your local fields and such (like when you give the orientation speech would be a good time, maybe even tell people to have more experience players do that kinda stuff for them since it only takes like 2 seconds to unscrew a tank)