Sport and leisure injuries are the biggest single cause of accidental eye injury in children. They are more common in older children and in boys and can nearly always be prevented by wearing properly fitting protective eyewear.
There is often sensible advice on eye safety available from supervising groups connected to the sport in question. The table at the end of the leaflet shows which activities carry the greatest risk of eye injury. It is even more important to protect the eyes in such activities if the vision is poor in one eye, or if there has been any previous eye injury or operation. Toy guns cause a small percentage of all injuries, but the injuries caused are often severe. It has been shown that most of these injuries happen when children are not under adult supervision. Particularly dangerous are toy guns which use compressed air to fire a projectile (this includes air rifles, BB guns and paintball guns). These cause around 100 injuries a year in the UK and in 20 of these the eye ruptures (bursts). This nearly always results in blindness.