Another Person Hit In The Eye By A Ricochet

[Ian_Gere]

This is the aftermath of a ricochet off a wall passing between the edge of a lens of a pair of ESS Crossbow shooting glasses and his cheekbone. It happened this last Sunday at Zed Adventures: The Mall, Reading.

 

Thankfully it seems that there has been no damage which will turn out to be permanent, but look how close that is to his iris - who knows what kind of damage would have been caused to the tiny muscles and/or nerves which control the iris? A couple or three millimetres over and it would have been on his cornea, also squashing the lens underneath. Very likely that he would have been partially blinded in that eye for a while; perhaps forever.

 

We all know that looking cool is a big part of airsoft and hey, there's nothing wrong with that IMO, but not being able to properly see yourself looking 'operator' is surely too high a price to pay for it. This is not the first time I've written that shooting glasses are not appropriate eye protection for airsoft and almost always some person/s has/ve a reason why they 'cannot' wear goggles and only lenses with a gap, in some cases as wide as 2 BB's side by side (ffs!), will do. IMO those people need to take a good hard look at those reasons and have another think about all the various types and shapes of goggle on the market. Don't be afraid to improvise either: I'm certain that whatever anyone's problem with goggles may be*, between us we are capable of coming up with a solution.

 

Someone is going to get blinded due to wearing shooting glasses to airsoft one day: it's just a matter of time. Don't let it be you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*except when their problem is an inability to not type googles: that appears to be an intractable neuro-muscular issue brought on by a low level of microgorms/s²

Edited November 20, 2015 by Ian_Gere
name redacted at his request

[beastmode]

Saw that earlier on the Bolsh page. He's lucky to have escaped losing an eye. I always wear either bolle goggles or fan assisted goggles. Which are both full seal. I don't even like having my teeth exposed especially at cqb so usually wear a lower mesh as well.

[i3666]

See my thread about Dye i4's! I have worn shooting glasses before and I cannot see me going back to them again now...

[Zak Da Mack]

Ouch. Good to see he's ok.

I've seen something similar on YouTube of a BB grazing the surface of the eye and he went temporarily blind because of the shock. Scary thing

I always think about the risk involved. For example, I only wear my face mask in cqb when I'm at most risk of losing my teeth walking round a corner. But I always wear full seal, unless I'm DMR/sniping because once again, I feel that the risk is low enough for me to get away not wearing full seal. I'd never choose looking "operator" over being safe any day of the week, but I do prefer wearing glasses and not full seal as it feels more comfy to me.

[EvilMonkee]

It was me that got hit. For the record it was a complete fluke. I normally wear ESS Crossbow cos I can use prescription inserts with them but am now switching to full seal. Ian would you mind redacting my name out of this? Especially as you know what I do for a living...Ta

[lafta]

I saw you getting taken down to the safe zone after weapons down. Glad to see you're OK.

[Snakeeyes75]

Firstly, I'm glad to hear you're ok!

 

It scares me to hell when I see people with shooting glasses. I wore my brand new Heroshark Full face last Sunday and a BB struck me on the edge of my cheek bone and stopped inbetween the glasses and my face! Probably the closest I've come to a world of pain! Ironically it was my last hit of the day.

[Ian_Gere]

Firstly, I'm glad to hear you're ok!

 

It scares me to hell when I see people with shooting glasses. I wore my brand new Heroshark Full face last Sunday and a BB struck me on the edge of my cheek bone and stopped inbetween the glasses and my face! Probably the closest I've come to a world of pain! Ironically it was my last hit of the day.

This hit was the closest i've had to one in the eye: exactly the same as yours - between eyepro and 1/2 face mask:

 

...even though it bled like a bastard, it didn't really sink in just how dangerous this was at the time.

I mean, I learned 2.5 lessons straight away: 1) those 1/2 face masks need 2 straps to hold them stable on my face (and it was easy enough to add a 2nd to this mask), not just 1, to stop them bouncing up and down when i run, opening up the gap between eyepro and mask, and 2) the straps need to be done up tightly to make the mask immobile, which then required extra foam padding inside for comfort. The half lesson was that those mini-goggles do not cover enough of the soft skin around my eyes for my peace of mind - not that I was concerned about my eyesight, just a bit scared of the pain i spose. However something which didn't really sink in, until i'd seen photo's/IRL of BB's sunk in people's faces, was that a BB could go through the soft skin just at the top of either of my cheekbones as i have about the width of my index finger where there's no muscle underneath, just skin over the bone of the eye socket, and hit me in the eyeball under the skin...

 

So that was that - goggles which not only seal to my face all round, but also cover those bits of skin between the top of my cheek muscles and my eye sockets. All the time.

[Aunty Pasty]

Glad to see you're ok and no permanent damage hopefully. I always wear full seal and even so I've had a bb squeeze in between the seal and the skin underneath my eye. I felt something touch my eye although it wasn't painful. Then my vision was messed up until I realised it a the bb rolling around behind the lens inside my eye pro. That was a bit surreal.

[djben9]

I have 2 TMC masks like that, they have 2 straps, may be worth looking at them if any good?....removed and fitted to fast helmet, but have the other V2 half mask as well with goggles or mesh...

do often think about glasses but im also worried about the sides....

[Ian_Gere]

I have 2 TMC masks like that, they have 2 straps, may be worth looking at them if any good?....removed and fitted to fast helmet,

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "may be worth looking at them if any good?" When you were first talking about fitting a mask to a fast helmet, iirc, we had a short discussion about stuff attached to helmets being potentially wobbly on the face... Have you skirmished them yet and, if so, how are they doing?

do often think about glasses but im also worried about the sides....

Not just the sides, the underside too if a ricochet bounces up off your own gear or your gun, or if you are lying down feet towards the enemy looking towards them down the length of your body (if, say, you had just run forward, come under fire and, instead of trying to outrun BB's like a helmet, slid to the ground firing back like a legend) then the angle of your head makes the gap under the lenses face straight toward the enemy. Plus, depending on the shape of your face, maybe also the top out towards the edges, if for eg you were looking down taking fire from the front, or ricochets off branches, light fittings, etc. above you...

[Snakeeyes75]

This hit was the closest i've had to one in the eye: exactly the same as yours - between eyepro and 1/2 face mask:

 

...even though it bled like a bastard, it didn't really sink in just how dangerous this was at the time.

I mean, I learned 2.5 lessons straight away: 1) those 1/2 face masks need 2 straps to hold them stable on my face (and it was easy enough to add a 2nd to this mask), not just 1, to stop them bouncing up and down when i run, opening up the gap between eyepro and mask, and 2) the straps need to be done up tightly to make the mask immobile, which then required extra foam padding inside for comfort. The half lesson was that those mini-goggles do not cover enough of the soft skin around my eyes for my peace of mind - not that I was concerned about my eyesight, just a bit scared of the pain i spose. However something which didn't really sink in, until i'd seen photo's/IRL of BB's sunk in people's faces, was that a BB could go through the soft skin just at the top of either of my cheekbones as i have about the width of my index finger where there's no muscle underneath, just skin over the bone of the eye socket, and hit me in the eyeball under the skin...

 

So that was that - goggles which not only seal to my face all round, but also cover those bits of skin between the top of my cheek muscles and my eye sockets. All the time.

 

 

I'm only 14 months into the hobby and I've had a hit just like yours and the one the other day (It caused no damaged but smarted like a bastard!), When I have a mo' I'll get a pic uploaded of my new Heroshark setup. It's pretty much all joined but without having to strap it so tight against my face it causes headaches. It's crazy how BB's will find a way in though!

[djben9]

sorry Ian was a rush post before kids went to bed and wife shouting!, I meant they come with 2 straps that may hold on better?.....although now having spent time looking at above picture ive seen what you have done!.....manflu is getting to me!

 

yeah I tried the half mask/fast helmet for half a game with ESS goggles, went well, got a hit above the lip but protected

still a few tweaks I need to do as like you said, worried it may slip down, although my nose holds it on, also may attach my mesh goggles to the mask and strap over as an added fixing.....all trial and error

 

if all else fails I have the other face/ear pro and he kingrin goggles!, to be honest, I value my face so wanna keep it bb free so goggles* for me

 

 

*mesh/lens

[Sacarathe]

It's basically this:

 

This vid is awful, but it gets the job done. I've been playing with this set up and it works fine with no mobility of the face mask.

 

I just wish I had something to cover a 1cm gap over my nose from each nostril.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Ian_Gere
embedded media

[djben9]

indeed, its what I followed, couldn't find the knife though !

 

wife caught me trying the helmet on with the V2 mask, works better not fixed to helmet I found out

[Randymanpipe]

Your wife shouts too huh djben? Glad to know it's not just me lol.

[dex]

As I've said before- you make your own mind up about your eyepro. Anyone who wears shooting glasses must accept there is a small chance of this kind of happening.

[DX115FALCON]

full seal eye-pro should be MANDATORY for airsoft. It is for many CQB sites, but more places need to take this kind of thing more seriously than then do.

 

cant go wrong with a set of mesh eyeware- or Bolle/Wiley X gear if you prefer clear eyeware.

[Ian_Gere]

This vid is awful, but it gets the job done. I've been playing with this set up and it works fine with no mobility of the face mask.

Hope you don't mind that I embedded your linked media - i would have left it if it was a functioning link, but for ease of forumming, you know... (to do it yourself you need the full url and select the [media tabs from the Special BBCode menu {3rd button from top left of editor}) and yeah, wholly fake self aware irony overload, Batman! The thing that bothers me is that I found adding the 2nd strap, plus joining them at the back with a sorta cat's cradle of paracord, did loads to stabilise that mask in the above photo (my mistake that day was to not tighten the straps enough, but at that stage in the mask's development my nose was getting squashed on the mesh cos the foam pads i added to sit on my cheekbones were not thick enough). I can't help but suspect that going back to a single point of attachment would allow it to move up and down more, unless it was viciously tight.

I just wish I had something to cover a 1cm gap over my nose from each nostril.

I think I know what you mean, but I'm not 100% - are you talking about the bit where the nose part slopes down and bends in? If so i think it's mainly a case of finding goggles with a shape that tesselates with the mask well on your face, but you can also bend the mesh over a round piece of wood or something and/or change the angle that the mask sits at with interior pads - on both of mine, to get them to go well with ESS Advancer V12's+homemade mesh lens replacements, the angle and bend shape closes the gap under each eye, but leaves a small gap on my nose (which is only hittable from the side mind, because the nose piece does stick up in front).

 

works better not fixed to helmet I found out

Yeah, that's what I would have thought. There must be a way to attach a 2nd strap to the forward end of each helmet rail though, eh? Although if the straps are comfy enough for you under the helmet, there's no need I spose... until you start to add a comms headset into the mix, muahahahaaaaa! (that'll be my alter ego, the demon gear addicter...)

 

As I've said before- you make your own mind up about your eyepro. Anyone who wears shooting glasses must accept there is a small chance of this kind of happening.

Yeah, but it's not just about each of us as individuals - the majority of people in the UK have never heard of airsoft, so if there was ever a well backed media campaign with an MP giving it the usual "do it for the children" speech, there are very few people who would oppose an outright ban, or even just legislation to restrict the power of guns to the degree of pointless bothering with 'em... and one thing which will make that likely rather than simply possible is someone losing an eye, no matter who they are.

 

full seal eye-pro should be MANDATORY for airsoft. It is for many CQB sites, but more places need to take this kind of thing more seriously than then do.

I've spoken to a site owner about this and he told me that the main reason they wouldn't do it was because they wouldn't want to alienate players. The way i tend to think about that however is that some people really got the arse over the law that made wearing seatbelts compulsory... if it is going to happen though I believe it'd have to come from the players in some way, but then when you think what it's like trying to get the average bunch of airsofters to follow not merely an indisputably good plan, but one which is literally the only one which makes any sense - I mean, you'll still see people nod, offer no criticism, put forward no plan of their own, even carry on nodding when somebody says something like "and you lot who are doing X will have to stick to it or those lot who are doing Y will have no chance" and then go and do precisely the opposite herding cats...

[ImTriggerHappy]

Simple answer is wear full face.

Plenty of masks out there which dont interfere with using scopes too much and the full mesh ones dont make you get so hot like the paintball style masks.

[Sacarathe]

herding cats...

 

Haha, I deliberately didn't link the vid in that manner because it's so baaaad. But no problem

 

I'll get some selfies next time i'm at a game so you can see what I mean. My mesh mask cheek section docks perfectly inline with my smith optics lopro regulator goggles, but the shape of the mesh masks centre line fails to dock at all with the nose, leaving the mesh pointing forwards, giving me no protection to my nose between 9-10 and 2-3 to either side and limited at 10-11 and 1-2.

[Esoterick]

As I've said before- you make your own mind up about your eyepro. Anyone who wears shooting glasses must accept there is a small chance of this kind of happening.

 

Yep I think it should be up to the player. The actual long term damage from wearing glasses currently holds no more weight than wearing mesh and getting fragments of BB in your eye to the best of my knowledge. I was even talking about this to a chap that used to marshal at work and he said he is happy using glasses plus lower mesh for CQB.

 

To be blunt no one really wants to blind, or permanently injure another player. Yet the far more common risk is getting your teeth smashed out and that seems like this is ok? I don't like the idea that I could knock someone's teeth out but I accept it and know that if it happened I would be massively apologetic, whilst knowing the blame lies with the victim.

 

If I took permanent eye damage as a result of wearing glasses, it would be my fault. However it's massively unlikely and is a calculated risk on the wearer's(my) part. All I can say is that I've heard marshals on a brief say they've seen a person a week for the last 3 weeks get their teeth knocked out. I've not once heard anything of the kind about using eye protection, other than don't use the visor on a cheapo helmet as eye protection.

[Ian_Gere]

Simple answer is wear full face.

Plenty of masks out there which dont interfere with using scopes too much and the full mesh ones dont make you get so hot like the paintball style masks.

Yeah, not a bad idea except for the not being able to get at your mouth without shifting what is protecting your eyes in the game zone. I know i can get a sweet in me gob without exposing my eyes and the same goes for the tube of a hydro bladder, but on both days i wore my fencing mask stylee mesh mask, i had marshals giving me pretty severe gyp for doing it. And of course they totally rule out smoking...

 

I have a vague plan to cut a hole in mine in front of my mouth and cover it with a hamster cage stylee door made from mesh - but like so much which is fiddly, since i've been ill i just haven't got around to it...

[ImTriggerHappy]

Yeah, not a bad idea except for the not being able to get at your mouth without shifting what is protecting your eyes in the game zone. I know i can get a sweet in me gob without exposing my eyes and the same goes for the tube of a hydro bladder, but on both days i wore my fencing mask stylee mesh mask, i had marshals giving me pretty severe gyp for doing it. And of course they totally rule out smoking...

 

I have a vague plan to cut a hole in mine in front of my mouth and cover it with a hamster cage stylee door made from mesh - but like so much which is fiddly, since i've been ill i just haven't got around to it...

So basically a full face mask will protect your eyes,teeth,lungs and help prevent obesity and tooth decay.

Thats the best bit of advertising ever.

Must say though the "trap door" sounds like a good idea.

[Ian_Gere]

Haha, I deliberately didn't link the vid in that manner because it's so baaaad. But no problem

Well yeah, but you did post it, so you still get the blame! I just made it easier for people to see just how bad your taste in YT truly is!

 

I'll get some selfies next time i'm at a game so you can see what I mean. My mesh mask cheek section docks perfectly inline with my smith optics lopro regulator goggles, but the shape of the mesh masks centre line fails to dock at all with the nose, leaving the mesh pointing forwards, giving me no protection to my nose between 9-10 and 2-3 to either side and limited at 10-11 and 1-2.

Yeah, gotcha. It's kinda the same for me, but not as wide as you're describing. My plan is to try to hammer at least 1 of them over a spherical steel something-or-other, sorta like an anvil, but again, haven't got one of those round tuit thingumajigs...

 

Yep I think it should be up to the player. The actual long term damage from wearing glasses currently holds no more weight than wearing mesh and getting fragments of BB in your eye to the best of my knowledge. I was even talking about this to a chap that used to marshal at work and he said he is happy using glasses plus lower mesh for CQB.

 

To be blunt no one really wants to blind, or permanently injure another player. Yet the far more common risk is getting your teeth smashed out and that seems like this is ok? I don't like the idea that I could knock someone's teeth out but I accept it and know that if it happened I would be massively apologetic, whilst knowing the blame lies with the victim.

 

If I took permanent eye damage as a result of wearing glasses, it would be my fault. However it's massively unlikely and is a calculated risk on the wearer's(my) part. All I can say is that I've heard marshals on a brief say they've seen a person a week for the last 3 weeks get their teeth knocked out. I've not once heard anything of the kind about using eye protection, other than don't use the visor on a cheapo helmet as eye protection.

I know marshals aren't telling people during safety briefs, but that doesn't mean that the problem isn't serious - in the last year it happened at my local site to someone i don't know and now again to someone I do know. I forget the details now, but i'm pretty sure that when the incident @Skirmish, Mansfield happened and the huge series of discussions ensued, more than 1 similar incident was brought up in comparison. IMO if site owners knew how often these ricochet eye hits have happened they would be taking it more seriously, but let's have it right, we the players spend a lot of time on forums and FB discussing every aspect of airsoft, but that's not true of most site owners or even marshals...

 

In any case, even if the majority of site owners/organisers do know the full extent of the potential risk, there are more reasons than wanting to avoid alienating players to just ignore it - there are some people in the business whom i am convinced are now in it purely for the money; that's not to say that they have always been that way and in fact i doubt that, since starting out is a lot of work with very little guarantee of success and TBF there are plenty of much more secure ways of making a packet off an investment. Nevertheless some people have done very well for themselves and, of those, some are known for some well dodgy business practices and even dodgier attitudes towards us their punters...