Acid Attack on a man in Surbiton.

Spencer Gymer, victim of an acid attack that took place on Friday 19th January at around 4pm has been left blind in his left eye.

He was waiting at the traffic lights on Brighton Road, Surbiton, near the Seething Wells Halls of Residence, when he was approached by a motorcyclist who was “wearing a balaclava underneath his helmet.”

In a video that his daughter Molly Gymer posted to Facebook the day of the attack, Gymer said that while he was talking on the phone, a stranger began to shout at his car window. He describes how the attacker persisted and started pressuring hm to open the car window despite his repeated attempts to defuse the situation by saying “he was being rude for not opening it further”.

Gymer told the Local Guardian, “When I opened my window, he instantly produced a water bottle with a sports lid – like a nozzle”.

“He then proceeded to squeeze the whole bottle directly into my face and upper body.”

He was taken to Kingston hospital where he underwent ten hours of water irrigation to flush out the corrosive substances from his system.

Gymer shared a thanks to a man working at the wine shop ‘Laithwaites’: “he was running backwards and forwards with huge jugs of water – he has potentially saved some of my right eyesight.”

When interviewing a worker from the ‘Laithwaites’ store, he explained: “Alan is 70 years old and used to be in the army. This meant he had quick reactions and knew what to do straight away”.

Gymer wanted to raise awareness to these kinds of attacks. He said: “My message to you all is never open your car window if someone pulls up next to you screaming at your car. I don’t want this to ever happen to anyone else”.