Skirmish Paintball Are Sued For Negligence After A Head Injury

An I.T programmer called James O'Leary has sued a paintball centre belonging to Skirmish Paintball for 27,000 Euro's.

James O'Leary visited a paintball site owned by Skirmish near Dublin in Wicklow after being struck on the side of the head by a paintball being fired from a marker.
After the incident Mr O'Leary suffered what he described as serious headches constantly.

Little is still known of the circumstances of the incident but we are pretty certain that Skirmish where to blame because Skirmish where made to pay the substantial sum of money to Mr O'Leary.

Mr O'Leary was on a corporate outing with his workplace when the serious accident happened, leading us to believe that his workplace may have taken on the legal case against Skirmish.

The Skirmish network of paintball centres was set up in 1984, and it has 27 paintball centres in the UK and also a number in the U.S, Ireland and Australia.

A large number of Skirmish Paintball's centres are not owned outright by Skirmish, but are run as Franchise's. This means that anyone can open up a paintball centre if they can afford all of the costs associated with the start-up of a paintball centre.

The paintball centre that this incident took place was most probably a franchise as a pose to a centre owned fully by Skirmish. This then raises certain questions about the processes that happen when someone applies to become a franchisee for Skirmish Paintball.

The sport of paintball is extremely safe when the rules are followed, in fact more injuries happen per person on football fields and golf courses. The majority of injuries people sustain while playing paintball tends to be on private fields where their are few safety protocals in place to prevent injuries.

This incident in question happened after a paintball hit the side of the players head. So from this I think it is safe to say that the players where not wearing full head helmet's. Some paintball companies only issue full head paintball goggles as standard meaning that this accident would have been easily prevented as no part of a persons head is ever exposed to being hit.

The staff at a paintball centre are equally as important as equipment because well trained staff will readily spot dangerous situations before they have a chance to harm anyone.
If a in-experienced person opens up a paintball centre then there is a good chance that they will employ in-experienced marshalls to manage the paintball centre, and be ill equipped to supply the right training to the marshall's themselves. This could easily lead to a situation where the paintball marshall's where less likely to spot dangers on a paintball field.

Skirmish Paintball could probably remedy these potential problems by auditing all of their franchised sites to make sure all of their safety equipment is of a good standard, and that their safety procedures where all up to standard.