Permanent Ocular Injury Following Paintball Pellet Hit: A Medicolegal Case

Paintball is a ubiquitous recreation, with severe and occasionally irreversible injuries. In this study, a rare medicolegal case of paintball-related closed globe blunt ocular injury was described. An 18-year-old boy who was hit in his right eye by a paintball pellet presented with severe eye pain and blurred vision. Ophthalmologic examinations showed lid edema, conjunctival hyperemia, conjunctival laceration, subconjunctival hemorrhage, corneal edema, anterior vitreous hemorrhage, congested sclera, commotio retinae, vitreous hemorrhage, retinal hemorrhage, macular edema, and macular hole. After maximum medical improvement, the patient who sustained incurable maculopathy and decreased visual acuity was referred to the legal medicine center for appraisal of the impairment. AMA Guides was used to assess the impairment of the functional vision. Despite his monocular visual defect, the patient was rated in the range of mild vision loss namely AMA class 1 with 22 percentage visual system impairment.