To the idiot with the laser pointer ...

Thrown off the top of the Green Monster?

 

One of my friends suffered permanent eye damage while flying at night and unaided (without night vision goggles) near DeFuniak Springs, Fla., not too long ago.

After the surgery, he'll no longer be a pilot and faces a medical discharge. Took him -- just like it took the rest of us -- more than four years to get where he was at that time.

What a fucking shame.

 

Laser pointers you can buy at Walmart or Office Depot have that much distance, from a stadium seat to home plate or an airplane?

 

Helicopter at 500 feet.

 

That's a damn shame, TBF. Your buddy deserved better.

 

So can these...

 

In the mid-90s, I got to work for the company that did the Padres' game-day programs one year. During the course of the year, I got to know the guy who did a lot of photography for the team and was under contract by our company to provide photos for the program. We weren't buddies, but I got to know him a little bit; he was a nice guy, solid photog and very professional in his demeanor.

A couple years after I left that job, I read in the paper where he was in the photo pit by the Padres' dugout shooting during a game with the Pirates. Suddenly, his eyes felt a burning sensation and his vision got temporarily blurry. It was found out that Jason Schmidt, who wasn't pitching that night and apparently wasn't interested in paying attention to the game, was using a laser pointer from the Pittsburgh dugout and shining it in the photog's eyes. A security guard was alerted, and he went over to tell Schmidt to stop it, which elicited a string of cursing from Schmidt toward the guard.

After that, let's just say I haven't had a lot of sympathy for the guy who's missed most of the last three seasons to injury and gets to read how he's one of the biggest free-agent busts in Dodgers history. Of course, he still gets to keep his money and he didn't get a line drive in the cojones during his return the other night, so I can't say karma has completely gotten him.

 

Here is some information on laser pointers and eye damage.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-a-pocket-laser-damage

http://www.pangolin.com/resguide09c.htm

The red pocket lasers you buy at Wal-Mart are supposedly safer, but obviously the magnifying effect of a long-distance camera lens will increase the effect.

The green lasers, especially the big ass ones, are much more dangerous — they're illegal in the U.S. They're powerful enough that commercial pilots have been temprarily blinded by them on takeoffs and approaches. These are certainly powerful enough to cause eye damage at 500 feet.

Shining a laser at an aircraft is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison under the Patriot Act.

 

Jesus.

Would love to see a link to that story.

 

Before reading this thread, I had no idea these things were dangerous - I thought they were merely annoying.

 

New levels of assholishness . . . and, yes, noted . . . Philly and Bahhhhsthan . . .