A Britain’s Got Talent star had told how he could be left blind after an incident which saw him in hospital. Magician Damien O’Brien took to Instagram to say he had damaged his eye sight.
The performer, who reached the final of the popular ITV show in 2020, told followers he had burned “60-70%” of his cornea. Thanking people for their support he said some permanent damage was likely to have happened to his sight.
He wrote: “Thank you to everyone for the messages. So last night I managed to burn about 60-70% off a layer of my cornea.
“I’m OK but in a lot of pain. Likely to have some permanent vision damage. Again, thank you for all the well wishes.”
He didn’t say what had happened to cause the injury. The magician is known for his close-up magic routines, including card and coin tricks, using the techniques of sleight of hand and hypnosis.
When he appeared on BGT in 2020 he amazed the judges and audiences with his stunning tricks. His performances helped him reach the final where he finished sixth with musician Jon Courtenay going on to take the title.
He baffled judges Simon Cowell, David Walliams, Alesha Dixon and Amanda Holden with tricks including turning a smartphone into a block of metal engraved with a key date – Simon Cowell’s birthday. He asked the judges for specific dates – Simon gave the birthday of his son Eric (14th February), Amanda gave the date of her marriage anniversary (10th December), while Alesha suggested her daughter’s birthday (1st October) – then multiplied 1403, 1012 and 110 together.
David was then asked to divide the number by his four-digit banking pin code, which resulted in the number 71059, and to hand over his credit card. Damien then took David’s credit card and pushed it through his phone, before revealing that the phone had transformed into a block of metal, engraved with the number 71059.
Following the success of the show he has gone on to have a career performing with celebrities including The Sidemen. Just days ago he performed for families and patients at Great Ormond Street’ Children’s Hospital’s Christmas party, entertaining them for the 11th year in a row.
He regularly posts on social media and one recent Facebook video showed a fellow magician pulling a TicTac mint from his eye and hand it to Damien. The BGT star said then he was going to bug other magicians to tell him how to do their best tricks.