The day that irrevocably changed Aryan Banerjee's life forever began like any other.
No one could have predicted that a "happy" 9-year-old who loved playing Minecraft and Halo would walk into Taradale Primary School one morning and be carried out on a stretcher.
His father, Anjan, a Hawke's Bay GP, and mother Maumita, have a lot of unanswered questions about what happened on May 25 - what they do know is their son was somehow left hanging by his shirt from a toilet window. They know he stopped breathing, that his heart stopped beating - but for how long?
That their son, who was following 11-year-old big brother Anshul's footsteps as a promising football goalie and had just started playing guitar, will never be the same again.
Most of all they know "it never should have happened in the first place".
More than three months later he remains in Starship Hospital, his parents living a split life - Maumita by his side while Anjan keeps the home fires burning.
Normality now looks like football practice and support from the sidelines, school, help with homework, an 11th birthday - it's also road trips to Auckland to visit a very sick son and brother.
ACC pays for flights for Mr Banerjee but not his son, so they make the most of the five-hour drive as often as possible.
There is the realisation complications surrounding Aryan's condition are often changing, but facts remain the same - he has brain damage.
His legs and arms do not function independently, nourishment comes via a tube to his stomach and, "right now he can't even breathe well".
On Friday last week, Aryan took a turn for the worse when one of his lungs partially collapsed and a chest X-ray revealed pneumonia. Apart from a 10-day stint, he had not been well enough to return home.
Updates from doctors "praying for miracles" are of little solace - but the Banerjee family keep a tiny glimmer of hope that one day Aryan will wake up and function normally - they have to.
"It's a total roller coaster, other than my oldest son, we don't sleep well," Anjan says.
"It's a wait and see game, at the moment we are hoping we can bring him back to the Bay in the next few days, that's if he responds well to the antibiotics."
The Taradale community has pulled together to help where it can - delivering meals - while a silent helper regularly swoops in to weed gardens and keep the grass cut.
Anjan's colleagues past and present have pitched in with "generous" donations to a Givealittle account, as Maumita cannot work and is likely to lose her job.
Behind the scenes a Worksafe investigation continues with results expected to be available by September 25.
It will never take away the pain Anjan felt as paramedics surrounded his child.
"I was finishing a clinic when I got a call from my wife saying Aryan had been badly hurt - I thought he had just fallen off the monkeybars," Anjan says.
"I got collared by the headmaster as soon as I walked into the school.
"He explained the situation, when I went over there I saw him there - they had just finished resuscitating and they were starting to intubate, that's not something you forget."
In a nightmare twist, Anjan learned his father, who was living in England and had terminal cancer, passed away soon after Aryan's accident.
Taradale Primary School was left reeling and shaken pupils were offered specialist support services.
-To make a donation see: givealittle.co.nz/cause/help4aryan