Archery-related accidents

We've been having a bit of a discussion about archery-related accidents as part of a general one about the relative risks of different sports. Does anyone have any information/knowledge/experience of accidents in the sport. These could range from accidents incurred in a range of ways - walking to and from targets, lifting and carrying bosses, breaking equipment, penetration (arrows) injuries or whatever. Does anyone now if there have been any archery fatalities in the past few decades? I refer to appropriately arranged events and club meetings generally speaking.
 
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woodsplitter

Member
Supporter
Ironman
American Shoot
I hurt my shoulder last August pulling a wooden arrow out of a straw boss, near the edge. I'm just getting back to pulling my own bow now.
I think it's the potential danger that makes archery safe.
 
During a session in the local leisure centre two 12 year olds were collecting arrows but the straw boss wasn't secured properly. It started to fall off the stand and one of the lads who was standing at the side decided that it would be a good idea to try and catch it. Luckily enough for him it didn't land on him but it did take some skin off his leg as it dropped. A bit of first aid and he was fine.
 

dave lpb

Member
I've heard of at least one person loosing most of the sight in one eye at a tournament due to being stood behind someone who didn't look before pulling arrows out of a boss. I'm sure you can guess what happened
 

BillM

Member
When my club started we only had bows with sights. The first person who added stabilisers obviously didn't think about what could happen after shooting his arrows as he usually just turned and went back to the waiting line. This time he turned but caught the person in front of him just above the eye with the new long protruding thingy - who put that there you might ask??. There was lots of blood but the person was extremely lucky because if the end of the longrod had hit him about 2cm lower it would have been in his eye and I hate to think what the consequences might have been.

BillM

P.S. The archer with the longrod then proceeded to give everyone a lecture about safety when leaving the shooting line - stable doors, bolting and horses spring to mind.
 

Furface

Moderator
Supporter
.... I wonder if anyone has had problems as a result of carrying bosses?
We are always warned about such dangers, but, surprisingly, No. Despite the fact that, when I started out, the practice at the club was to carry (up to 3! depending on testosterone levels) bosses on ones back, bending forward.
 

Raven's_Eye

Active member
Ironman
I've seen a good number of clubs carry Bosses on their backs with the A frame, this can't be good. We have H frames at our club that makes moving them like a sudan chair.
 

Mark31121

Member
Ironman
I've only known one require hospital treatment - back in about 2002, one of the freshers (18/19) a couple of months in was gripping the arrow nock so the arrow was coming away from the rest and decided that the best solution to this was to release as soon as it started to move sideways - one of the arrows hit sideways and shattered with a peice cutting his hand. Thankfully it was only minor injuries and nothing was imbedded. He came back again once his hand was healed and stopped gripping the nock...

I was on the shooting line next to him at the time (also a novice) - it was quite the experience
 
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cappagardi

New member
I've somehow managed to impale one of the nock tips into the top of thumb nail whilst trying to push a nock in and not paying attention to what i was doing. Lots of blood, pain, stinging and whimpering.

One of the members of our club got a very bad carbon splinter when trying to pull a damaged ACE without a gripper.
 

10point9

New member
One of our club members managed to smack herself in the nose (not quite breaking it) when she released the release aid at the wrong moment (while coming up to full draw)... She gave up compound and went back to recurve...
 

scoobied1964

New member
I've just started my beginners course so can't speak from any experience there. However I do have over 20yrs experience working in a major A&E in Bristol and have never once seen anyone injured in an archery related incident. However if it was a minor laceration or back injury it may not have been fully disclosed. So it seems a relatively "safe" sport
You may want to look at the BMJ website or Journal of Emergency Medicine as they often have "interesting" case reports. Completely SFW but likely to be nauseating if blood isn't your thing!

Sent from my BlackBerry 9780 using Tapatalk
 

Microphonic

New member
I gave my self some quite bad back pain for a few days lifting a boss badly. Considering I'm only 24 and that's the first time I've ever hurt my back that much, for that period of time, I'd count it a hazard!!!!

Near miss with exploding nock on release also but only a near miss.
 

Trunkles

The American
American Shoot
Lifted a boss wrongly to slide an elastic for a backstop underneath. Really really hurt my arm so went to A&E - no lasting damage.
Won't be doing it again as the way they are secured has been changed.
 

BillM

Member
If it is the incident that occurred in Scotland some years ago, it was a small piece of his bow which struck him on the chin. When he began to feel ill, he was taken to hospital where his condition deteriorated but the medics couldn't discover why. After he died the autopsy found the small piece of bow was embedded in an artery behind the ear and he bled out. I was told this by a doctor friend who investigated the situation as he dealt with wounds like the one the archer had in the A&E he worked in.

BillM
 
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