Out of the twenty clients with eye injuries the research study took a look at, twelve needed surgical intervention.
A new study found that paintball weapons trigger more extreme eye injuries than previously believed.
Scientists from the University of Chicago Medicine analyzed data on attacks with paintball weapons over the course of 2 years and discovered that more patients than expected experienced vision-threatening emergencies after being struck in the eye, with some suffering an eyeball rupture and even going permanently blind.
” Many of these patients had devastating results, such as irreparable vision loss,” said lead author Shivam Amin, MD, a second-year citizen in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at the University of Chicago Medicine. “Some people might view paintball guns as safe toys, but they can cause major harm when used in a without supervision setting, specifically when people use them as an attack weapon and go for the head.”
The research study, which was just recently published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology, is the very first to take a look at clients for eye injuries caused by paintball guns being used as attack weapons with malicious intent. The researchers set out to get more information about how dangerous paintball guns are in uncontrolled environments.
20 clients with eye injuries from paintball weapon attacks were studied by the researchers over a two-year period, from January 2020 to December 2021. At the time, Chicago had actually seen a spike in attacks utilizing paintball weapons.
” In reality, we had 8 injuries on one weekend,” said senior author Hassan Shah, MD, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and UChicago Medicine oculoplastic cosmetic surgeon. “There was an uncommonly high variety of really severe injuries where the eye really break open.”
Surgical treatment was essential for twelve individuals. 6 patients had actually a burst globe, which happens when the eyeball rips apart and needs emergency surgical treatment to sew it back together.
Three of those patients ultimately required an evisceration, in which medical professionals change the within the eye with silicone. Scientist reported the highest rate of burst worlds (30%) amongst all research studies to date that consisted of at least five or more clients.
When integrating several different groups of studies that did not look specifically at paintball gun assaults, this is considerably higher than the 7% rate the group discovered.
” Some of these patients had numerous surgical treatments, made several visits to see us in our clinic, and experienced a considerable physical, emotional and mental toll associated with the interruption in their quality and loss of their vision,” said Amin.
5 patients were left blind in one eye.
Unlike guns, which use weapon powder to propel a bullet out of a guns barrel, paintball guns utilize compressed gas to fire a spherical gelatin capsule filled with paint. The guns can be mechanically or electrically powered; depending upon the gun utilized, paintballs can take a trip as much as 300 feet per 2nd and have an optimal variety of approximately 120 feet.
Because paintballs are little, reasonably heavy– at approximately 3.5 grams– and do not cause an exit injury, their force upon effect is completely launched over a little surface area.
Reference: “Ocular Injuries From Drive-by Paintball Shootings” by Shivam V. Amin, Valerie E. Otti, Asim V. Farooq and Hassan A. Shah, 17 May 2022, American Journal of Ophthalmology.DOI: 10.1016/ j.ajo.2022.05.004.
