Son's horrific injuries shock mum

Pierce Harris was working under his Toyota MR2 when it was hit by a vehicle outside his home. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Justine Payen had one thought as she rushed to the side of her son, who was lying critically injured on the roadside after a car smashed into the back of a vehicle he was working under.

"Not my baby," Payen said to herself when she discovered the crumpled body of 23-year-old Pierce Harris outside their Northland home yesterday afternoon.

Harris was removing a cover on his prized yellow Toyota MR2 when it was struck by another vehicle on George St, in Hikurangi, at 1.20pm.

The McKay Electrical apprentice planned to sell the sports car, but instead it sat extensively damaged after being propelled through a neighbour's fence.

Harris was in Northland Base Hospital last night, where his mum told the Herald on Sunday doctors had confirmed he had broken his pelvis, leg, arm, three vertebrae and numerous ribs.

He also had multiple cuts and grazes, bruised lungs and one vertebrae was shattered so would likely need to be fused to another in a future operation.

"Thankfully he's got movement in his feet and toes but he's pretty badly banged up."

Payen was in the back yard when she heard the crash, and was first on the scene.

"[The impact] dragged him and the car down the road. Because of the angle he was at, he was up against the kerb, we just had to keep him still. You could tell there was quite a bit broken.

"I was talking to him saying that he was going to be okay, that he was going to live. He was saying it was hurting. He was in a lot of pain."

A police spokesman said the man driving the other vehicle was taken to Whangarei Police Station for drug and alcohol tests.

Harris was critically injured and he is now in Whangarei Hospital. Photo / Supplied

No charges had been laid last night. The crash was one of two serious incidents in Northland yesterday.

In Titoki, west of Whangarei, two people were seriously hurt in a motorcycle crash at the intersection of Mangakahia and Fraser Rds just after 3pm.