BUFFALO, N.Y. — Stephen Termini is a Buffalo musician and steelworker who took a dream vacation to Ireland while he was off of work.
It was a trip to trace his genealogy. While there he was assaulted.
The attack that happened down the street from his hotel where he tells Channel 2's Claudine Ewing, he felt "well protected and felt no problems on Talbot Street in Dublin."
"A kid came up to me, and punched me in the nose." He said his nose was broken. "He hit me in the eye so bad I almost lost my eye. And then another youth came from across the street running at me, jumped in the air, and kicked me in the ribs. At that point, I fell over, and then they started kicking me on the side. It was caught on film on a closed caption TV. And then they dragged me around the corner out of view. I was unconscious, lying on the ground. Somebody tried to shake me and wake me up and that couldn't happen. So the ambulance came and got me and took me to a hospital and I had a hematoma in my brain and I slipped into a coma," Termini, 57, said.
Termini returned to Buffalo on Sunday. His memory he said is not good as a result of the assault. He had a hematoma in the brain.
Thousands of dollars were collected in GoFundMe. Termini is still trying to access the funds.
As for the teen attackers, three have been arrested. " I don't know why these kids did this to me. I really don't. I never said anything. I never antagonized these people " He wonders if his outfit with an American flag on it made him a target.
"I forgive them for what they did. I'm not focusing so much on negative energy towards somebody that that did an evil thing to me," he said.
He wants a judge to decide the best punishment.
Before he left Ireland, Termini visited the area where the crime happened and he hopes to visit the country in the future.