Describe the paintball incident that almost cost you one of your hands .
The year was 1996 and I was 23 years old , playing with Bob Long ’ s Ironmen at the time . I had just started a new job in construction and just before I left for Atlanta for the tournament , my boss mentioned that he was able to do insurance for us . So he had me fill out all the paperwork prior to going so from a medical perspective I was doing good . We made the finals in Atlanta . We were playing on the main field and I was kind of on the show side with Bob behind me . I think we had lost the first game and this next game we really needed to win in order to take second place .
The goal was for me to get up to the 50 to this little tiny bunker . I ’ d been living in these tiny bunkers the whole tournament . But these bunkers were really small . The whistle blows , I end up taking off . I slide into the bunker and nobody saw me , nobody is shooting at me and when I slid I dove Superman and I guess I didn ’ t bury the barrel but I caught the gauge — and if you remember , the gauges on the old tanks were huge . When the gauge hit
I guess it just snapped off and there was this tiny hole like a 16th of an inch , that pressurized to show you how much air was in that tank . And when I when I put the gun in the dirt to muffle the sound , it really didn ’ t work all that well .
So I took my left hand , kind of put it over where the gauge had busted off to muffle the sound . What I didn ’ t realize when I did that you had that 16th of an inch hole it basically the air is coming out at 4500 PSI . It ’ s separated the skin or the glove itself , and then separated my skin , which then pushed the air into my arm . At that time , I didn ’ t realize that it happened . It just kind of felt like a bee sting .
At that point I knew my marker was down . I couldn ’ t shoot paint , so you know what do you do ? You ’ re never out . You ’ re playing for $ 20,000 , so I just sat there and just talked as much as I could try to become a target . I tried to keep as many guns on me to take the pressure off everybody else so they could move .
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