Thailand gym attack: Hastings victim's face 'butchered'

Gary Reed's eye socket was shattered in the attack

A British man who was attacked in a gym in Thailand says his face was "butchered", leaving him fighting to save his eye so he can return home.

Gary Reed, from Hastings in East Sussex, was struck with a dumbbell while working out in Pattaya on 16 May.

He said the attack shattered the orbital bone around his eye that now requires reconstructing.

"It's left me scared," he said, adding: "I don't want to go out when it gets dark."

Mr Reed said the attack followed a disagreement with another tourist over whose turn it was to use bench press equipment.

He told BBC South East: "He went to a rack behind me and picked up a seven-inch, 1kg dumbbell, [then] approaches me from behind and strikes me across my face with it.

"He has really butchered my face. I've got scars all around my eye, I've got a bleed on my eye. Over 50% of the bottom part of my orbital bone is shattered."

His family are trying to raise the £15,000, needed for surgery to reconstruct his eye socket before he can return home, after his travel insurance expired.

Gary Reed was attacked by a tourist in a row over bench press equipment in a Pattaya gym

His sister, Julie Stafford, said Mr Reed had extended his holiday, but not his insurance.

"If we don't save his eye, it is going to sink into the back of his head and he is going to end up with no eye there at all," she told the BBC.

The BBC was unable to contact Thai police about the attack but Mr Reed said his attacker faced court proceedings and had his passport removed.

Mr Reed said: "I really want to get home now."

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