Doctor who suffered eye injury when hit by paintball during stag party sues company
Dr John O’Neill claims a mask he was wearing allegedly slipped down his face and within a second a paintball struck him in the eye. Picture: Collins Courts
A doctor at a stag party who suffered a permanent injury to his eye when he was struck by a paintball during a party activity has sued in the High Court.
Consultant in paediatric histopathology John O’Neill claims a mask he was wearing allegedly slipped down his face and within a second a paintball struck him in the eye.
He had been attending an afternoon in Garristown, Co Meath, including paintballing as part of stag party for a friend who had returned from the United States to get married in 2016.
Mr O’Neill told the High Court the safety mask he was given for paintballing had the chin strap missing on one side, a visor that was quite scratched and the mask looked old.
He says he now has permanent retinal damage and loss of the part of vision in his right eyes and later had to have surgery after a traumatic cataract developed.
He told the court:
All of the claims are denied by Murray Zone Ltd which owns the centre where the paintballing took place and it contends Mr O’Neill allegedly did not comply with instructions, had allegedly loosened the mask himself and and did not call a halt to the game when he found the mask was allegedly not secure.
Ms Justice Emily Egan, who told the parties the issues were pretty stark in the case, asked that the paintballing mask be brought to court as she needed to see it.
John O’Neill, aged 43, from Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, has sued Murray Zone Ltd with registered offices at Mullaghboy Industrial Estate, Navan, Co Meath, the owners of Puddenhill Activity Centre, Garristown, Co Meath, as a result of the incident on September 17, 2016.
Opening the case, Jonathan Kilfeather SC with Colm Condon SC told the court Mr O’Neill’s eyesight is not now much better than it was three or four days after the accident and at one stage it was feared he may have ruptured his eye.
Mr O’Neill he said was very concerned about his ability to function as a pathologist. He said his field of vision is restricted and he cannot make out letters in print close up and has problems with glare.
In his case he is also claiming €20,000 for loss of earnings as he had been due to sit a post graduate exam the week after the accident and could not do it and as a result he is claiming his career progression was delayed by six months.
In evidence, Mr O’Neill said there were 11 in the party in two teams and it was agreed that a headshot would not count as a kill. He said he was on his third game of paintballing and there was a lot of firing and he and another player who was playing the part of a VIP ran for about 20 metres.
He said he could feel his mask slip but he had a hand on the VIP and was carrying his paintball gun which was like a machine gun in the other hand as they ran to an aircraft on the paintballing field.
“Within a second the paintball struck me in my eye,” he said. Play, he said, appeared to go on until somebody noticed him on the ground. He said he had a throbbing pain and he could not see out of his eye and he was told it did not look too bad.
He was brought to a local hospital and transferred to a Dublin hospital where he was told he had a significant eye injury.
“I was in pain and I started to worry about my career. I was told I had a significant eye injury and I could lose my eye,” he told the judge.
Mr O’Neill was in hospital for five days and his sight returned but he now has permanent retinal damage and loss of the part of the field of vision.
The case before Ms Justice Emily Egan continues.
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