Paintball related accident in the news

[Jazzman]

Hey all-

I was browsing through the forums over at Doc's Machine and found this link:

http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20030614/southsound/28062.shtml

Does anyone have any more info on this?

[WickeDKlowN]

I'm prettyy sure(from what I heard at PBN) thyat he unscrewed a 12gram before it was emty and it shot out and hit in the head.

[Thordic]

I don't think a 12g has enough power to kill anyone. I've seen them shoot around with air in them, and they don't seem all that deadly...

Besides the fact they said "exploded". Although, if a CO2 or HPA tank exploded near the kids head, there might not be much head left.

[Dryden]

I don't know about the specific incident this thread refers to, but I do remember an article from about a decade ago where a person was seriously injured (though survived) from a 7oz CO2 tank. What happened in that accident was the kid had over-tightened the 7oz tank so much, that when backing it out of the marker's bottomline, he actually unscrewed the tank from the valve stem, as opposed to the valve from the ASA. The remaining pressure in the marker blew the valve threads and ASA apart, and the pressure in the CO2 cylinder sent the tank rocketing into his chin - after valve shrapnel had already done a good number to his upper body.

I've also been witness to an improperly fitted do-it-yourself bleed-off valve on a fill station explode from a team haphazardly filling their own tanks. No one was injured in that incident, although most of us at the field played the next 20 minutes with temporary hearing loss.

Might be something along those lines. Even if a cylinder is 20 years old and never been tested, I'd think the chances are slim and none that it would just go 'pop' one day. But surprisingly very few people who play paintball actually watch what they're doing when unscrewing their tanks from their markers.

[hitech]

Originally posted by Dryden
he actually unscrewed the tank from the valve stem...and the pressure in the CO2 cylinder sent the tank rocketing into his chin...

AS I remember the story the tank hit the person behind him in the chin. I went to a tournament JUST after this happened (this is where I heard the story). You had to have all your CO2 bottles valves removed and properly reinstalled by tournment personal.