it was unpleasant and blinding for a few seconds although I wouldn't say incapacitating.
I think how incapacitating it is depends on the strength of the laser and i would think you would have no idea of the strength of the one you experienced. If it was one of the board pointers these are around 1mW, some of the stronger ones can be 40x that and more and are capable of bursting balloons and lighting matches at some distance so the difference in eye damage could be substantial!