‘Less lethal’ can be deadly

Many emergency room doctors and safety experts say they are all too familiar with the type of compressed-air gun injury that apparently killed a 21-year-old college student who was struck by a shot fired from a pepper-pellet gun by Boston police trying to control an unruly crowd after a Red Sox game on Oct. 21.

Several models of compressed-air guns, which are also used to fire paintballs and pellets, are nearly as powerful as traditional firearms and have caused dozens of deaths and serious injuries in the United States in recent years.

In a report in today’s Pediatrics, the journal of the American Pediatric Assn., experts warn that compressed-air guns should be used with caution and “should never be characterized as toys.”

The study found there were about 21,840 compressed-air gun injuries treated in U.S. emergency rooms in 2000, the most recent year for which statistics were available. Four percent of the injuries required hospitalization. Between 1990 and 2000, federal authorities recorded 39 deaths from the guns, of which 32 were children 15 or younger.

“What this report does is list objectively for people the injuries and mortality associated with these weapons,” says Dr. Danielle Laraque, a professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and lead author of the study. “These injuries have been documented for many years. Consumers may not really be aware that when they use one of these guns, even though it’s not a firearm, it often has a muzzle velocity that overlaps with traditional firearms.”

Muzzle velocity is the speed at which the object leaves the gun. The study found that 80% of compressed-air guns have muzzle velocities of 350 to 450 feet per second, and about half of the guns have a muzzle velocity 500 to 930 feet per second.

In contrast, a firearm pistol, which launches a bullet using the energy generated by burning gunpowder, has a muzzle velocity of 750 to 1,450 feet per second. Eye penetration can occur at a muzzle velocity of just 130 feet per second, and skin penetration at 331 feet per second.

Both low- and high-velocity compressed-air guns have been linked to serious injury, and deaths can result from the high-velocity guns, according to the study. The report was written by Laraque for the pediatric association’s Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention. “There are various things that have been done to these guns in recent years to make them faster, to increase muzzle velocity,” says Laraque, author of the report, which used statistics from the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission. “When we started having these higher-velocity guns, that’s when we started seeing these injuries.”

Depending on the muzzle velocity and caliber of the projectile, compressed-air guns can penetrate the skin and cause serious internal injuries. The report found that eye injuries occurred in 12% of the cases; head and neck injuries, 24%; and extremities injuries, 63%.

Victoria Snelgrove, 21, a student at Emerson College in Boston, died hours after being hit in the eye by a pellet fired by police officers when a crowd celebrating a Red Sox victory over the New York Yankees turned violent.

In a statement released Oct. 22, Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O’Toole said the gun that caused the injury was not a firearm but a “less-lethal” type of compressed-air system, similar to a paintball device.

O’Toole said the projectiles were designed to break upon impact, dousing the target with a pepper spray.

“The dreadful irony is that the use of less-lethal weapons is intended to reduce the risk of fatal injury,” O’Toole said in the statement. She said the department would will review use of the system in this particular case.

Few people understand how serious these injuries are because they often cause only a small entry wound, Laraque says. But injuries caused by compressed-air guns (also called nonpowder guns) should be treated similarly to traditional firearm injuries, with an emergency response and prompt medical treatment.

A study in 1998 looked at 42 air-gun injuries to children treated at one trauma center during a seven-year period. The children had an average hospital stay of seven days, half underwent surgery to treat their wounds and 38% were left with serious long-term disability.

“The injury can be pretty deceiving,” Laraque says. “You are fooled that there may not be serious internal injury.”

Nearly 3.2 million nonpowder guns are sold each year in the U.S., many in toy stores, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The report’s authors called for stricter state laws governing use of the guns, adult supervision of children using the guns and use of safety devices, such as goggles. But even safety goggles can fail to protect against serious eye injuries, Laraque says.