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DOCTORS have told Fra McCaffery he will not regain the sight in his eye after suffering severe facial injuries when a bin filled with rocks was hurled from an overpass onto his windscreen.
The west Belfast lorry driver had been travelling to the Royal Mail office in Larne last Friday night after returning to HGV driving to help the pandemic effort.
The father-of-four has been hailed a hero for restarting his lorry and driving it onto the hard shoulder to clear the high-speed carriageway – potentially saving lives.
It is understood police believe the random attack was carefully planned, with a car needed to transport the brown bin full of large rocks to the Ballyboley overpass, which is in a sparsely populated countryside area.
Politicians have branded the attack “attempted murder” and appealed for help tracing those responsible.
A car would have been needed to transport the brown bin full of rocks to the Ballyboley overpass which is in a sparsely populated countryside area
The 56-year-old from the Whiterock area underwent two surgeries on his eye to remove glass, but doctors said they have not been able to restore his sight.
Mr McCaffrey, who had previously survived hijackings during the Troubles. also faces reconstructive surgery after suffering significant facial injuries.
He will not be able to return to lorry driving and does not yet know if he will be able to keep driving taxis and taking international visitors across Ireland on the Wild Atlantic Way as he did before the pandemic.
“He’s home from hospital but he’s still in a bad way,” his daughter Megan said.
“They’ve told him the vision is gone. He’s taking it badly. His whole life has been driving and he was saying after all those 17 years of driving (for Bass brewery) before he was so delighted to be back doing it again.
“Now he’s not even sure about his other eye. He says it’s not 100 per cent there. He has drops for both of them. He has to go back in two weeks’ time to see.”
Megan McCaffery works in a special needs school but has been unable to return as she fears bringing Covid-19 into the house.
“He has hospital appointments he needs to attend. I live at home with my parents, there’s not where else for me to go and I can’t risk getting Covid and him not being able to get to the hospital.”
She said the family are desperate to see the person or people responsible caught, not just for her father but to stop it happening to someone else.
The PSNI investigation is continuing with officers anxious to speak to “anyone who noticed any suspicious activity in the area of the overpass or who captured dash-cam footage of the incident”.
They have asked information to be passed to police in Larne by ringing 101 or reporting it online at www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/.
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