Le Chat
15th October 2020, 10:22
What started as a “one-way conversation” with a magpie has ended with a Victorian man airlifted to hospital with serious injuries to both his eyes.
James Glindemann, 68, said he was about to tuck into a Chinese takeaway lunch on Tuesday at an outdoor mall in Sale, about 200km east of Melbourne, when he was suddenly and viciously swooped by a magpie.
“A juvenile magpie sat down in front of me, I had a one-way conversation for a few seconds and it was just looking at me,” Glindemann told Guardian Australia.
But after he asked the bird something akin to “how are you going?” things quickly turned ugly.
“I started to open the lunchbox, the next thing I knew, the bird had flown at my face and struck me in the left eye,” he said.
Glindemann said at that stage he had “not dropped my meal”, which appeared to have been a mistake.
“The bird sat on the concrete in front of me, and saw I hadn’t dropped the food, or I think that was what its thinking was,” he said. “It immediately attacked the right-hand side of my face, on the eye with a fair bit of force, and drew some blood.
“I became a bit concerned at this stage. I picked up the meal, which had fallen to the ground at this stage and started walking to my car, which wasn’t that far away.
“The closer I got to the car, the worse my eyesight was getting. I looked in the mirror to see the extent of the damage and I couldn’t focus at all on it.”
Glindemann called an ambulance and was taken to a local hospital. With the doctors concerned by the extent of his injuries, he was flown to the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, where he underwent surgery for two hours.
James Glindemann, 68, said he was about to tuck into a Chinese takeaway lunch on Tuesday at an outdoor mall in Sale, about 200km east of Melbourne, when he was suddenly and viciously swooped by a magpie.
“A juvenile magpie sat down in front of me, I had a one-way conversation for a few seconds and it was just looking at me,” Glindemann told Guardian Australia.
But after he asked the bird something akin to “how are you going?” things quickly turned ugly.
“I started to open the lunchbox, the next thing I knew, the bird had flown at my face and struck me in the left eye,” he said.
Glindemann said at that stage he had “not dropped my meal”, which appeared to have been a mistake.
“The bird sat on the concrete in front of me, and saw I hadn’t dropped the food, or I think that was what its thinking was,” he said. “It immediately attacked the right-hand side of my face, on the eye with a fair bit of force, and drew some blood.
“I became a bit concerned at this stage. I picked up the meal, which had fallen to the ground at this stage and started walking to my car, which wasn’t that far away.
“The closer I got to the car, the worse my eyesight was getting. I looked in the mirror to see the extent of the damage and I couldn’t focus at all on it.”
Glindemann called an ambulance and was taken to a local hospital. With the doctors concerned by the extent of his injuries, he was flown to the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, where he underwent surgery for two hours.