A teenager left blind in one eye after an alleged attack a year ago has found love with the pal who was with her on the night.
Alanna Quinn Idris opened up on her year of hell following an incident in Ballyfermot, South Dublin, which left her with a broken cheekbone ruptured eyeball and shattered tooth.
Alanna, 18, admitted the past 12 months have been tough for her but she is now very happy with her new boyfriend, 19-year-old Louis O’Sullivan.
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She told Irish Sunday Mirror: “It is the same boy who was with me when it happened and was with me at the Debs.
“It kind of flourished at the Debs. He’s lovely and such a nice guy.”
Alanna revealed she deferred her college course in interior design and architecture for a year as she is suffering anxiety and did not feel ready for it.
She added: “I’m not in college any more due to the stress of it all. I loved the course and I loved the people too, and cried when I left but I was just not ready.
“I’m going to look for a job in the New Year and get myself settled.”
Alanna has had four operations and will undergo more surgery to be fitted with a new suitable prosthetic eye. She said: “Where my injury is has sunken in a bit and is a bit too soft.
“I have to get a fat transfusion from my stomach put into my face which will hopefully help to level it out. The last prosthetic eye was just not right, it was the wrong colour.
“They gave me a new one then after that and it was just drifting to the right so it’s very awkward.”
The brave teen added: “It’s weird to say that my life is completely different now but it is. I was already a very anxious person, even as a child.
“But now when I’m walking around, when people looking at me, I’m paranoid thinking they think this and that.”
Recalling her hospital experience after the alleged attack she revealed: “I never had an operation before this and to have had four in the last year. When I was put in the ambulance they strapped me down and told me not to move.
“I didn’t get to look at myself, I just knew that something was wrong.”
Two young men have been sent forward for trial in connection with the alleged attack on Alanna and her pal in Ballyfermot on December 30, 2021.
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