A 17 year old girl who was viciously attacked in Dublin late last year has lost the sight in her eye and will need reconstructive surgery on her eye socket, her mother says.
Alanna Idris Quinn and a male friend were attacked close to the Civic Offices, Ballyfermot Road, Dublin, on December 30th.
Ms Idris Quinn’s mother, Jamie Ambers, said her daughter’s eye “is not ever going to be better,” and that she was “not on the mend”.
“As hopeful as I am for a miracle, the doctors have told us a number of times that her sight is gone and they are certain it will not return. Five weeks later she is still unable to open her eyelid and the consultant has said that it may be nerve damage and he cannot say if that will get any better,” she wrote.
“She had an ultrasound scan on her eye last Friday and it showed that there is a possibility her retina is detached, so she has been referred to a retinal consultant to see if that is the case. She spent the best part of Monday and Tuesday in the emergency department of the Eye & Ear [hospital] because she was in so much pain.”
Ms Ambers told people who had donated to a GoFundMe campaign for her daughter and her male friend, that Alanna “literally has no cheekbone and only half an eye socket”.
“She has to have bone taken from her hip to reconstruct her eye socket and then a plate inserted to replace what was once her cheekbone but is now just an open hole,” she said.
Alanna’s friend was also stabbed while stepping in to defend her and needed medical attention.
A local man had also intervened as Ms Idris Quinn was being kicked, punched and beaten with implements her attackers were carrying, including a knife.
Ms Ambers said previously that her daughter had been “tormented and harassed” by a large “group of young lads” from the Ballyfermot area since she was in her early teens, including verbal abuse, having eggs thrown at her and cans of drink.
She also said that her daughter, who is mixed race, did not believe there was a race-based element to the abuse.
Two males have already been before the courts in relation to the attack, while a teenage boy was also arrested for questioning yesterday, and another male juvenile was arrested this morning, and was being detained at a Garda station in west Dublin under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.