The sharp edge of the broken toilet that slashed John's eye; some of the blood is still visible.
A 13-year-old MTB rider has been left with a very sizeable gash to his face after crashing in the woods in Co Wicklow and falling onto the sharpened edge of a broken toilet.
The ceramic toilet had been dumped at the scene at Carraig Hill beside the injured boy's home in Glenealy.
"On my way there I fell off my bike and landed head first into a piece of a broken toilet cistern that had been dumped in the woods," said John McElhinney of the incident last Saturday.
He has outlined what happened in a Facebook post on the Glenealy Tidy Towns public page to highlight the dumping and show the impact it had on him.
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"The large broken piece of ceramic was covered almost entirely in leaves except for a sharp edge coming out of the ground," he added.
"Thankfully I did not lose consciousness and I managed to get my phone out of my backpack and phoned my granny to let her know I needed help," he said of his grandmother who was looking after him at the time.
He was eventually taken to hospital in Crumlin after an initial visit to CareDoc in Wicklow to clean the wound.
And such as the large cut in his face across his eye socket that plastic surgery was required to ensure his eye and sight could be saved.
He said he felt extremely lucky he did not fracture any bones in his face and that his sight could be saved, adding his injuries highlighted the dangers of illegal dumping.
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