Teen speared through eye socket will recover fully

AUSTRALIAN teenager Shafique el-Fahkri survived an attack in which he was speared through his left eye socket by a metal chair leg.

Surgeons in Melbourne successfully removed the metal, which was embedded four inches through the 19-year-old’s head to his neck where it had partially severed an artery.

The injury was sustained in a brawl in the city outside a nightclub. Firemen cut the chair away from Mr El-Fahkri’s head at the scene.

In an intricate three-hour operation, surgeons at Royal Melbourne Hospital removed the metal, lodged dangerously close to his brain, through the right side of the former Xavier College student’s neck. A plastic surgeon repaired his face.

Mr El-Fahkri walked out of hospital on Friday, 19 days after the incident. He did not suffer any loss of sight or brain injury.

Doctors said they were astonished he survived.

He is expected to make a full recovery.

Attacker Liam Peart was convicted in the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court yesterday and sentenced to a two-year community-based order. He will also undertake 400 hours of community work.