Two recent incidents involving severe injuries and a fatality on amateur badminton courts in Taiwan have drawn sharp focus to the hidden physical dangers of the sport. Despite its reputation as a safe recreational activity, a standard badminton shuttlecock can inflict devastating ocular trauma, medical experts warn.
Teacher Suffers Severe Eye Injury from Errant Shuttlecock
In mid-October, a 68-year-old teacher identified as Lin sustained a severe accident while playing badminton, as reported by Mirror Media in Taiwan. An opponent’s shuttlecock struck Lin directly in the left eye, causing an eyeball rupture and severe iris damage. Ophthalmologist Hong Kai-Ding noted that Lin’s iris detached along its entire 360-degree base, with a portion protruding through a corneal laceration. The injury plummeted Lin’s left eye visual acuity to 0.01 on the decimal scale, bringing the eye near total blindness. Emergency surgeons reconstructed the damaged iris, and within a month, Lin’s uncorrected visual acuity recovered to 0.8.
The physical mechanics of the injury relate directly to the dimensions of the equipment. A standard badminton shuttlecock weighs approximately five grams, but its head measures roughly 25 to 28 millimeters in diameter—nearly matching the 24-millimeter size of an adult human eyeball. Because of this proportional match, the head of the shuttlecock makes direct impact with the eyeball rather than being deflected by the surrounding orbital bone structure. High-speed impacts at close range compress and deform delicate eye tissues, triggering corneal tears, iris ruptures, lens dislocations, or retinal detachment.
Clinical Studies Highlight High Rates of Closed Globe Injuries
Research published in the journal Injury on October 16 by an investigative team including Divya Tara analyzed records from 486 patients treated for badminton-related eye injuries across four specialized clinics within the LV Prasad Eye Institute system in India. The study found that 403 cases, or 83 percent, stemmed from direct impacts by the shuttlecock itself, while 70 cases involved the racket and 13 cases involved eyewear. Closed globe injuries—where the outer layer of the eye wall remains intact—accounted for 97.33 percent of the total cases. Crucially, none of the 486 patients wore protective eyewear during play.
A separate study published in BMC Ophthalmology in 2023 examined 102 patients at the eye clinic of Fudan University in China over a period of at least 18 months. That research revealed that 37.3 percent of the injured patients developed secondary glaucoma, 33.3 percent suffered anterior chamber angle damage, and 31.4 percent experienced lens dislocation, with 13.7 percent sustaining retinal detachment. A total of 75 patients required surgical intervention.
Complementing these clinical findings, computer simulations conducted by American researchers and published in 2024 in Ophthalmology Science demonstrated a sharp, near-instantaneous spike in intraocular pressure within a model eye in less than a thousandth of a second following a shuttlecock impact.
