GARDAÍ ARE INVESTIGATING after a well-known Limerick hip hop artist and instructor was blinded in one eye in a road rage attack last weekend.

Tobi Omoteso said he was “hunted down” and attacked by a man with a baseball bat last Saturday.

Omoteso said “the world went dark” after shards of glass entered his eyes during the alleged attack.

“The damage is not just physical, it is permanent. My iris was sliced in half and had to be meticulously stitched back together,” said Omoteso, who also works at Limerick Youth Service.

A garda spokeswoman said: “Gardaí received a report of an alleged incident of assault and criminal damage which occurred in the Old Cratloe Road area of Limerick city on Saturday 28 March at approximately 10:30am,” said the spokeswoman.

“A car has been reported as damaged. A male in his 30s suffered serious injuries during the incident. Investigations are ongoing.”

Omoteso told a GoFundMe account he helped to set up to assist him with rising medical bills following the attack: “It was the day I learned that the senseless violence you see in movies, the kind of nightmare you assume only happens to strangers, can hunt you down in your own neighbourhood.”

Omoteso, who is a director of the TOP 8 street dance company, said that a male motorist “tailed me through the streets of Limerick, chasing me toward a well-known roundabout where he finally forced his way in front of me, swerving to cut off any hope of escape”.

“I watched, paralyzed, as he stepped out of his vehicle wielding a wooden bat. He began to beat my car, then he struck and shattered the driver’s side window with the wooden bat which exploded shards of glass, like tiny knives, sprayed across my face and buried themselves deep into both of my eyes,” he added.

Tobi Omoteso after the alleged road rage attack in Limerick City Tobi Omoteso Facebook Tobi Omoteso Facebook

Omoteso claimed that the attack occurred “after a brief exchange” between him and the man after he had tried to drive out of his home estate: “Something snapped in him. He chose me.”

Omoteso, whose family emigrated to Ireland from Nigeria in the 1990s, after his surgeon father began working here, has himself carved out a career in music dance and youth community service.

Commenting on last Saturday’s attack on him, he said: “We were supposed to be celebrating. We had just finished packing the car, the seats heavy with gear and equipment for the fifth edition of our hip-hop and street-dance community festival in Limerick that I co-founded and had been working in across Ireland for over 12 years.

“It was a day meant for music, DJ, street-dance, movement, graffiti, art, unity and having fun for all regardless of race, religion, gender, age and ability. Instead, it became the end of life as I knew it,” he added.

The Limerick-based father of one said he was facing “a long, agonising road of surgeries just to cling to a fraction of the vision I once took for granted”.

Omoteso said his injuries were further complicated by him developing “an onset cataract and a ruptured lens capsule, both of which must be surgically removed”.

“I am currently facing the first of four major emergency operations. Even if every single procedure is a success, I will never see the world clearly again, which ultimately affects my job, work, dance, social interaction and confidence.

“Once the surgeons have finished rebuilding what was destroyed, and once the wounds have finally scarred over, I will be left to wait. Only then will I know how much of the light I get to keep, and how much of it was stolen by a stranger with a wooden bat.”

Omoteso also advised people to “please stay safe out there”.

The GoFundMe account had raised almost €30,000 of a €35,000 target today.

Thanking people or their online donations, Omoteso said he was “blown away”.

“Nothing can beat unity,” he added.

“I lost an eye which I can never get back. But I’m reassured that with the humans I have in my corner, there will be a way forward!”

“Now a very long road to recovery begins! Catch you all soon on the dance floor!”