A salutary tale of eye pro

[druid799]

Thought it mite be an idea to post this up for others to think apon;
Another safety wear lesson to be aware of , back end of Jan I was playing at blackops Portishead site . Now as I'm sure you can guess it was brass monkey weather , absolutely nobbling , So I take an auto blast to the face (that was within the semi only range) from a HPA rig that was running just on the upper edge of the site limit and was cranking out a fair rate of fire , nothing illegal but definitely pushing the limits . I was wearing bolle trackers with prescription inserts and unbenounced to me due to the cold weather the inner lenses had been affected by the temp and when the burst hit my outer lenses it flexed against the inner which then shattered in to my eye . Luckily for me as an A&E nurse I was able to react correctly , as in NOT rub my eye as nine times out of ten this is were most damage occurred (human nature , it hurts you rub it) I poured a shed full of water through my eye then I covered the eye so I couldn't look out of it (reduces movement ) a mate takes me down to the nearest eye clinic were it's anethatized examined under an ophthalmoscope and the debris was cleaned out . Luckily for me due to my reaction and self treatment after the incident there was no permanent damage (some slight scratching but no lacerations) and I'm ok BUT this incident does raise another factor to eye pro , ambient temperature, this too can effect it .

[Eradicus]

Re: A salutary tale of eye pro

Crickey. Glad you're ok mate.

I had a low power site AK hit me wearing Bolle glasses once, it hit the skin under my glasses, rolled up under the lens and sat spinning for a second or so on the wrong side of my glasses.

Terrifying.

[heroshark]

Re: A salutary tale of eye pro

Was the lens glass or plastic?

[Eradicus]

Re: A salutary tale of eye pro

Let's collect eye protection fail stories here, it'll make a good reminder.....

[evilrobotshane]

Re: A salutary tale of eye pro

Good shout. This is a repost of a thing I did on Reddit's airsoft hole:

I've been curious about eye injuries. My airsoft background is in a generally cool but humid environment, with a 1-Joule maximum. I'd wear mesh glasses, and sometimes switch to ballistic goggles indoors. I figured the risks of poor vision from fogging causing a fall or collision outweighed the risks of having a BB splinter through mesh.

So, because I'm supposed to be writing a proper academic paper and this is apparently how I procrastinate, I did a search for injury stories on this subreddit. The search was for 'injur*' (to catch "injury" and "injuries" and "injured" and so on). There's loads of threads asking for peoples' worst injuries. I went through the comments and noted any that mentioned an eye hit. This was quick and dirty and I could have missed stuff, and I mostly only looked at top-level comments. Here's the results!

Four eye area hits from removing eye protection on the field. Once was to scratch, two were due to fogging, one not specified. Two described as injuries, one not, one near-miss of the actual eye.

Six instances described of eye area hits from not wearing eye protection. Four were kids messing about not at designated airsoft sites; two injuries and two near-misses, with one of the near-misses being due to non-ballistic sunglasses shattering. One was due to not wearing eye protection yet because the game hadn't started and a friend fired a negligent discharge. 'One' was a dude who said he didn't wear goggles ever and got hit in the eyes loads of times but never got hurt (he was using a helmet; potentially one with a transparent visor thing or something?).

Four eye area hits from BBs making it around the lens, three of which were injuries and one near-miss. One was described as hitting the goggle seal at a one-in-a-million angle, the others were bounces off bridge of nose, face, and mesh lower face mask. One of these latter was shooting glasses, the rest were sealed.

Miscellaneously, we have a report of someone getting an actual BB in the actual eye and losing the eye! No further details were given. One report of a BB busting through cheap mesh goggles and hitting the eye, but having been slowed down enough that no injury was caused. One report of a dude falling into a trench due to restricted visibility from wearing a stupid mask in the style of the computer game Army of Two; there may be many more restricted-vis injuries that I wouldn't have picked up due to the nature of my search.

Zero reports of BB splinters going through mesh. Conceivably mesh may be little-used in play areas with high-powered guns.

Zero reports of eye injuries from non-BB causes, such as tree branches, grit, or insects.

Probably the most common injury story is busted teeth. Ears, lips, fingers, ankles, and cock-and-balls tend to have a hard time of it too.

[druid799]

Re: A salutary tale of eye pro

Was the lens glass or plastic?

Plastic safety rated .

[Boo-Sabum Ben]

Re: A salutary tale of eye pro

For anyone with Nuprol eye protection, they've put a recall out on them

[heroshark]

Re: A salutary tale of eye pro

I'd say the most common and well documented in game eye protection issue is rounds getting in around the edge of non sealed eye protection. Even then it's rare to take serious/permanent damage. Although it is the only style of incident I know where people have received any permanent via a bb strike in game bar not wearing eye protection. As a measure I've personal seen it happen about 6-7 times in 17 years play and 2 of those people took permanent reduction in sight to some degree. Other common thing although never an injury in my experience are snapped frames on thin framed eye protection, even some expensive high end gear and stuff with rated frames.

[Rampage]

Re: A salutary tale of eye pro

Like most safety gear, there is an expiry date on eye protection.

Plastic can get very brittle (even tough polymers and frames that hold the lenses/mesh in place) when exposed to constantly changing environments and UV.

How often to change your eye pro is your call, I change mine every few months.