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paintballimpact.com / Safety / Ankle Injuries
Ankle Injuries - Paintball Injuries
Ankle injuries are probably the most common affliction among paintball players competing on licensed playing fields. While paintball injuries to the eye are the most serious, they are a rare event on licensed paintball fields that all maintain a mandatory wearing of a head protection system on playing fields. Though eye injuries and ankle injuries do occur as a result of playing paintball, they are both very rare. The sport actually produces one of the lowest injury rates of almost any athletic event. Paintball results show only 0.2 injuries for 1,000 exposures, the lowest rate of any Extreme Sport. To state this case a little further, the average player will suffer a paintball injury once every 500 years.
Among the injuries that do occur, eye injuries are the most serious. To eliminate this possibility, players are required to insert a barrel plug around the gun opening when not competing in a field game. And players are required to wear their goggles, or head protection system when in a game, or when they are in a location remotely near the playing field. Since paintballs can travel up to 300 mph, they can travel very far, and that includes the picnic table off the field, or even the field store 100 feet away from the game. So the majority of eye injuries occur when a player decides to take his mask off after getting knocked out of the game, not realizing that they are still at risk.
Unlike eye injuries, ankle injuries are probably the most common accidental injury that can occur in games. Paintball is a sport that involves a lot of running, sliding and diving. It is also a game that is played on lots of slick and uneven surfaces. The game is played on artificial turf in the case of speedball, and on fields like Operation Ambush in Springfield, Michigan. Operation Ambush is an indoor paintball field where the ground can sometimes get a little slick from all the slick paint that has shattered all over the ground. Other fields like On Target Paintball have outdoor fields with uneven terrain that includes grass, loose dirt, rocks, and loose brush around trees in their many playing fields. While On Target Paintball is a very responsible and reputable site for games, ankle injuries could possibly occur. To minimize the possibility of ankle injuries, players are encouraged to wear boots or high topped sneakers that are well supported around the ankle.
On Target Paintball take player safety very seriously, and have a link on their website www.ontargetpaintball.com that includes all their important safety rules. Some of the important safety rules at this field include not overshooting a player, paintball guns maximum velocities not exceeding more than 275 mph, and no firing in the staging or parking areas. The parking and staging areas are designated safe sounds, and shooting in these sections are strictly prohibited. If players follow all the important safety rules at these fields, the risk of eye and ankle injuries will be minimized.
Outdoor paintball and woodsball is not a sport that is played on flat fields like in soccer, where the entire game is played on low cut manicured grass. In woods ball, players jump over rocks, through streams, through mud, and other slippery surfaces, increasing the chance of ankle injuries.
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