STORY BY
Zac was playing with the BB gun his uncle had given him as a present when it accidentally discharged. His younger cousin, Billy, who was walking into the room, suddenly felt the sting of a pellet above his right ear.
For such a tiny piece of lead, it sure did hurt, but the wound didn’t look serious at all. In fact, the surface wound barely seemed worthy of a Band-Aid. But brain scans revealed the unthinkable.
When his parents took him to Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital, they learned that the BB had traveled almost all the way through Billy’s brain. Bone and hair had become embedded in the brain near the site of the entrance wound. The pellet itself was lodged in the left side of his brain.
“It never occurred to me that the BB would be in his brain,” the mother said. “We just thought the BB was right under the skin and needed to be dug out.”
Doctors quickly determined that Billy would need two major surgeries – a right temporal craniotomy to remove bone and debris and another surgery on the left side of his brain to remove the pellet.
Ball-bearings (BB) are just one
of the “toy”
gun-powered projectiles
that can maim
and kill. Incidents leading to serious injury
or death have been reported involving
paintball guns, air rifles, potato
bazooka
guns and pellets, in
addition to the
standard BB gun.
Anything that can be launched at high
velocity has the potential to penetrate the
human body.
Non-powder (no gun powder) guns use
compressed air to launch
projectiles and
can be almost as dangerous as traditional
firearms.
According to the Consumer Product
Safety Commission, 80 percent of non-
powder guns have muzzle velocities (the
speed at which the object leave the
weapon) at 350 to 450 feet per second.
Fifty-percent have muzzle velocities
measured at 500 to over 900 feet per
second.
A traditional handgun fires at 750 to 1450
feet per second. An eye penetration alone
needs muzzle velocity at just 130 feet per
second.
A blast of compressed air alone can
cause serious injury to the eye.
A few seconds of playtime with a BB (ball-bearing) gun turned into seven days in the hospital. He appears to have made a full recovery, but the injury puts him at risk for seizures, delayed infection and diminished intellectual performance.
“People don’t realize that pellet guns and BB guns are lethal weapons. They aren’t toys,” says Dr. James Baumgartner, the neurosurgeon at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston who operated on Billy. “They are weapons, and they should be treated as such.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 30,000 people with BB and pellet gun-related injuries are treated each year in hospital emergency departments in the United States. More than 80 percent of those hurt are children and teenagers. Boys ages 10-14 are at the highest risk for getting injured with a BB gun.
Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 39 deaths related to non-powder guns, which include air rifles and BB, pellet and paintball guns. All but six of the victims were children younger than the age of 15.
Baumgartner, assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, said he treats one or two children with gun-related injuries every year. Some children make a full recovery from their BB injuries. Others suffer severe disabilities.
“I operated on a kid who was shot pointblank in the face with a BB gun on Christmas day,” Baumgartner says. “He was a straight-A honors student, and now he is barely functioning. This is what a BB gun can do. If it doesn’t take your life, it can change your life forever.”
Billy’s parents said they never would have had a BB gun in the house if they’d known how seriously it could hurt their son. “We had no idea how powerful and dangerous it could be,” the mother says. “BB guns are marketed as children’s toys, but they need to be treated as weapons. Don’t let your child use it without supervision, and when it’s not in use, keep the BBs separate from the gun and lock it up.”
If a child is going to shoot a BB gun or other type of non-powder weapon, Baumgartner advises a responsible adult teach the child how to handle it properly. “Make sure the kids are using the BB gun in a supervised situation in a safe place."
Oftentimes, when a child is injured with a BB gun, there is a second victim, Baumgartner says. “The kid who does the shooting suffers, too. They sometimes feel unbearable guilt, and the child they shot feels anger. No one walks away from this. Lives get turned upside down.”
UPDATED: 7-05-2005
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Dr. James Baumgartner is an assistant professor in the Division of Pediatric Surgery at UT Medical School.
See Dr. Baumgartner also at:
Summer Carbon Monoxide Dangers
Generators used to cool off homes in hot summer months can cause death through carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning.
CO is an odorless, colorless gas that can kill or seriously and permanently injure people who inadvertently breathe in the noxious fumes emitted from generators in an enclosed space.
During hurricane season, emergency rooms see a rise in cases of CO poisoning from people bringing generators into their homes to provide power, often for cooling fans as well as cooking.
“During Hurricane Rita, we had a family of five die here in Houston for CO poisoning,” reminds UT Medical School Hyperbaric Medicine expert, Dr.Caroline Fife. “The Center for Disease Control and Prevention tracked deaths from CO poisoning due to combustion engines after Katrina and Rita and there was a dramatic increase.”
“Teak surfing”—holding on to the back of a power boat’s swim platform and being towed—is another danger. The boat’s exhaust pipe is in the face of the swimmer.
People riding in the back of pick-up trucks are at risk, too. Numerous cases have been cited of children poisoned by riding beneath tarpaulins or enclosed “cabs” in the back of the truck. In these cases, the trucks had a leak in the exhaust system or a rear-exiting tail pipe, not a side exit.
Fife also has seen this in boats with malfunctioning exhaust systems. She urges doctors and bystanders to pay special attention when groups of people begin to feel ill at the same time, particularly severe headache and nausea. Children often become symptomatic before adults.
“People associate CO poisoning with cold weather and northern states, but in the South, we see it a lot in summer with people just trying to stay cool,” Fife says.
