Alarm over bizarre potato and frozen egg attacks

West Australian doctors are alarmed by a series of attacks by youths throwing potatoes and frozen eggs at passers-by, including a recent case which caused a young man to lose part of his sight. Hamilton Hill chef Chris Harvey, 25, has been left with permanent damage to his left eye after he was struck by a potato thrown from a car as he walked just metres from his home about 10pm on September 29.

"My girlfriend Sarah and I had just got off the bus from Fremantle where we had been for dinner and were waiting to cross over the road and walk to our house when some cars with kids being pretty loud came past," he said. "They slowed down and threw a potato which hit my girlfriend's leg and one that hit me in the eye and then drove off. I was just in shock and clutched my eye." With blood in his eye and his vision blurred, he went to Fremantle Hospital where doctors treated cuts around his eye and found he had a serious injury around his retina.



Ophthalmologist registrar Jason Lim said the injury was significant because the weight of the potato caused bleeding under the retina, which was a crucial area the eye used to capture light and see with. "This guy's only 25 and he's lost 25 per cent of the vision in that eye," Dr Lim said. "It's hard to say yet what the long-term damage will be but certainly there will be some permanent loss of vision and he's at high risk of further loss of vision so will have to be followed up frequently."

Dr Lim said he was aware of another incident involving someone being hit in the eye by a potato in a random drive-past assault and an elderly man had lost some of his sight after a frozen egg was thrown at him. "It's hard to understand how people could do these sorts of premeditated attacks," he said. "These objects can be just as dangerous as rocks when they're thrown."