A HOLIDAYMAKER told yesterday how he was left blind in one eye after a seabird pecked it out of its socket. Michael Buckland, 38, was attacked by an injured gannet he was trying to rescue on a beach.
He scooped up the bird but it pecked his face in a wild panic when a dog dashed towards it. The gannet's razor-sharp six-inch beak punctured Mr Buckland's right eyeball at least three times - and his left eyelid was split in two.
He said: "I was only trying to save it but it began attacking me. I put my right hand to my face and felt a big hole where my eye was meant to be. It was hanging out and I had to put it back in."
Helped by his girlfriend, Mr Buckland, a welder from Cardiff, staggered for 45 minutes back to the caravan park where they were staying. He went to hospital where he had 11 stitches in his eyeball. But he can now only see through his left eye.
The couple later returned to the same beach in Gower, South Wales, to find the bird had since died. Its body was lying in the sand.
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