Why does this San Diego LASIK surgeon cringe  when hearing about outings to play paintball?  It’s the mental image I carry of what an eye looks like when hit by something the size of a marble traveling at 300 mph.  It is ugly, and the eye may never see again.

Paintball injuries to the eye can be serious enough to be blinding.  In one Bascom Palmer study reviewing patients treated for paintball eye injuries, 28 percent of patients’ eyeballs ruptured, and 19 percent had detached retinas.  81 percent of the injuries required surgery, including, most unfortunately, enucleation (removal of the entire eye) in 22 percent.  Only 36 percent of eyes recovered vision good enough to pass the California driver’s vision test (20/40, normal is 20/20).

From 1998 to 2000, the estimated incidence of paintball injuries rose from an  545 to 1,200 according to a report in the journal Pediatrics.  The injuries occur in two main settings: 1) young people in an unsupervised setting without protective eyewear  2) people in a supervised setting who “relax” and remove their protective eyewear after a paintball hits them and they are “out” of play.

I would prefer people, especially kids, not play, but if you are going to play, be sure to play in a supervised field and counsel everyone to keep their protective gear on until the game is over and all players’ weapons have been checked in.

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