"I don't know but probably - it's a difficult question to answer because you never know until you're in a situation, but probably" is Ronald's answer when asked if he would do the same thing again. Ronald Buck is recovering in a Costa del Sol hotel since being let out of hospital. He was being treated for injuries received in an attack from two unknown men when he was trying to help out a woman in Nueva Andalucía last Monday night. And the consequences of Ronald's attack cannot be reversed. He will not see out of his left eye again, which makes him practically blind at 52 years old as he already only had limited vision in his right eye as a result of a childhood illness. "You are just a blur," he told the SUR journalist who was just a metre away from him.

Ronald's positive attitude was surprising: "I've got a family in England, a business and I need to get on with my work," he said smiling all the time. However he does say that he sometimes feels angry and sad about what happened.

Ronald doesn't remember much about the night that he was assaulted. He can recall that he was coming out of a bar when he saw two men behaving in an aggressive manner towards a woman in the street. "Now I don't know if they were hitting her or pushing her but I do remember that I told them to stop. The next thing I knew was that someone was helping me up and they took me to my apartment. I couldn't see anything." According to some witnesses, Ronald was savagely kicked in the head by the two individuals when he was lying motionless on the ground.

The doctors diagnosed a fractured eyeball and other irreversible injuries. When Ronald goes back to England he will consult surgeons there about cosmetic surgery options.

Ronald has doubts over how to answer the question of what he would do if he could go back in time and saw the two men abusing the woman again: "It's a difficult question to answer. I always told my children never to get involved in such problems. It's easy to say, but difficult to do if you see a woman being hit. I don't know. I would probably tell them to stop again."

In the hospital the nurses told him about the case of the Madrid university lecturer who was in a coma after trying to help a woman who was being attacked. But Ronald doesn't want to hear about the fact that he may be considered a hero: "I'm not a hero. I don't even know how I would react in another similar situation."

What he is sure about though is that he will come back to Marbella where he has been holidaying for the last 15 years. "We were thinking about coming back again, and we will. The people here are very nice. I've got friends in Spain and the people who did this to me are not Spanish. This could have happened to me anywhere, including England."