Could A PaintBall Kill you?

[Beemer]

What do you think?

"It is thought to be the first death associated with the sport in either the UK or the United States."

"Mark Berry, a team-mate, told the inquest that Mr Costin was shot in the neck from just eight to 10 yards away during the game."

"A post mortem revealed that Mr Costin suffered a major stroke probably triggered by the velocity of the paintball."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1628682.stm

[�?�� �m���]

Are you trying to ask probability? It could hit you mid neck right on the spine and cause internal bleeding or hemmoraging into the spinal canal or it disloadges a disc etc. Get a throat shot and you're adams apple collapses/ your cricoid area and your airway collapses. Hit in the family jewels and the tremendous shock that you can get when your nerves overload with input of pain. Yes it could kill you. But this is why we wear protection

[Toll]

Depends at the velocity it was fired/your health/were it hit you

A ball going 450 fps hitting you in the temple when you don't have a mask could cause some serious damage. Anything moving 450 a second would cause some damage.

If you're a 20 something it might just really, really hurt. If you're 50 or 10, it could cause more damage progressively. The same goes for being shot in the heart and having it stop your heart or the excitement of it giving you a heart attack.

[Beemer]

Yes it could kill you. But this is why we wear protection

Yes but is your protection enough?

Smaller head and face masks, decreased range, same FPS and Increased ROF.

[�?�� �m���]

Cup, throat protector, knee pads elbow pads, turtle cap and ski mask. basically every part is covered by soft padding. How protected can you get? I ride motorcycles, for that its boots leathers CE padding helmet and gloves. Risk is granted. Waivers for rational people.

I'm more worried about a tank exploding than a paintball causing injury. But both are held with caution

[grEnAlEins]

I don't know if a paintball could kill me or anyone. This is one case, and could be a coincidence. I have been shot in the neck from fairly close on a few occasions. It hurts and all, but I have yet to die from it. This is not to say that death is outside of the realm of possibility, but I am not sure how strong of a link there is, even in this situation.

That being said, I am not about to find out. I will continue to "goggle up" and take other appropriate safety measures. If it is possible, it can and will happen. The example you posted (talking to Beemer here) may or not be a direct link. They guy could have eaten one too many sausage links for all we know, and the swelling from the hit was the straw the broke the camel's back. I do not think that one impact from a 3g projectile traveling under 300fps has the ability to kill by itself. I think that it must be part of a culmination of several events. I am not trying to downplay the hazard here, but I am saying that so long as safety measures are utilized, there should be no problem. In the example of this gentleman, there could have been a long standing circulatory problem. These often go undetected (example: How many times have you heard of a HS/college athlete dropping dead due to a heart attack at age whatever? Many.). I guess I just do not see a paintball being the sole cause of death. There must have been another unseen factor.

This is a really sad story though... I feel for his family

[Tao]

Well it depends not necessarily on velocity, but on the force it exerts. We all now a slower moving paintball wich does NOT break hurts way more than if it exploded. I am no doctor, but I understand that you can die simply from severe eye trauma so we can say being shot in the eye at all (let alone point blank) can kill you.

If you bruise easily (or maybe even normally) getting hit in the jugular or in the wind pipe could kill you to, but the swelling preventing you from breathing or cutting off circulation to the head.

[Lohman446]

There is general risks in every activity one takes part in. I am far more likely to be seriously injured / killed skiing (one of my other hobbies) than I am playing paintball. I am far more likely to be killed at work than I am playing paintball. Do I beleive, through a serious of incredibly bad luck, that I paintball could seriously injure or kill me? Sure, but I consider the risk so low that I have no problem stepping out onto the field. Just to quote the article

"It was not the paintball itself but the general activity and engaging in that game that set off a chain of reactions.

So, do I think a paintball could kill me? Sure, I think it would be naive to think that it is totally outside of the realm of possibility. But do I think its likely to happen, or even a high enough chance to quit playing? No, I actually don't.

Considering the article mentions a person with a preexisting condition, and I would say a failure of medical science to recognize the problem (considering there was a doctor involved before the gentelmen died) probably carries far more blame in an unfortunate incident than the paintball itself.

Even in this unfortunate incident, its not the paintball itself that is blamed. Unfortunately it is being used as an example, and is poor at best.

[surfbum]

this is a pointless poll

of course a paintball can kill someone, but so can a baseball bat, or a shoe, or a piece of paper, or anything else

the fact that a paintball can be used to kill somebody means nothing in terms of its safety during the game of paintball

[zazzoo]

May i ask what are all these threads for? are you doing a survey or something?
but yes im sure a paintball could kill someone but its a rare chance but anything could happen

[Beemer]

Even in this unfortunate incident, its not the paintball itself that is blamed. Unfortunately it is being used as an example, and is poor at best.

So you think. I think there is more there then we know. Of course it wasnt the paintball thats not what we want to hear or what they want to tell you.

[REDRT]

I figure since I've already taken a bullet to the head with countless other head injuries that should have been more severe according to the experts over the years it is quite possible my head is the safest place for me to get hit. But I still wear all the right stuff because I figure why be stupied? As long as I'm wearing a mask and other PB gear designed for my protection it isn't that I believe that a paintball can't kill me. It is more I believe it is very, very small on the list of things I do that could.



/ before I'm asked. It was 1989 and I was shooting one of my .22 cal rifles at a friends home. No big deal we were target shooting as normal after school. I had a round not go off so I waited a few seconds til I thought it was ok to open the action. I then ejected the round. Before it hit the ground it did go off. The bullet struck me in the head below the conner or my right eye. It broke the skin but deflected off my head. Neither the shell casing or the bullet was ever found. Both my friend and I were in shock due the chain of events. Maybe him more so tham me. I was blind and I would be for several days, but I managed to walk home on my own to get help.

[Lohman446]

So you think. I think there is more there then we know. Of course it wasnt the paintball thats not what we want to hear or what they want to tell you.

There was an official inquest into it which determined such. If we are going to start ignoring selective parts of that article I could simply state that just because someone wrote that it happened I don't even beleive it happened.

[txaggie08]

Either a direct blow to the temple or a direct blow to the larynx could cause sufficient damage, at close range, to cause serious injury.


There also exhists a small possibility of an cnurism forming due to a direct blow. Unlikely in the extreme but....

[CoolHand]

Given my penchant for dangerous hobbies and the fact that I work in heavy construction, the chances of me dying from a paintball impact are quite small.

The chances of me dying of something else entirely is quite a big larger.

I'll worry about the big chew me up stuff first, if you please.