Bashed party-goer on mend

A night's drinking ended in assault and hospital for 16-year-old Peau Peleti. Picture / Dean Purcell

A night's drinking ended in assault and hospital for 16-year-old Peau Peleti. Picture / Dean Purcell

Peau Peleti remembers almost nothing about the night he was beaten, taken to hospital in critical condition and placed on life support.

But the call that came to say the 16-year-old had been seriously hurt, the frantic drive to the hospital, and intensive-care specialist Tony Smith's opinion that he could quite possibly die are memories his parents will always live with.

The Henderson youth had gone to a 16th birthday party without telling his parents, and ended up lying on a driveway unconscious with life-threatening injuries.

His mother, Meleane Peleti, said when the call came, she and husband James were expecting the worst.

"I was a lot calmer than my husband. I had to calm him down while driving to the hospital. He was in a panic."

But now, more than month on, the family are just focusing on helping the quiet and sporty Henderson High School student with his recovery. Today he starts rehabilitation in preparation for going home.

Peau, who was sitting up in his Auckland Hospital room watching television when spoken to by the Herald, said that when he first woke from his coma, he did not even remember his age or his birthday.

Of the night of October 23, when he was assaulted, he remembers nothing, apart from buying alcohol at a liquor store hours before.

He had told his parents he was going to the movies with his cousin, but instead, after heavy drinking, he and his cousins went to the party in Andelko Place, Henderson.

When other teenagers later saw Peau on the driveway they thought he was just playing around. But then they realised it was serious.

Peau said his cousin Ale Tufala played a major part in saving his life by urging other party-goers to call an ambulance.

Peau had to be sedated. Three days after he was admitted to hospital, doctors operated to relieve his brain of swelling.

After five days, doctors said he was over the worst.

Mrs Peleti, a Henderson mother of five, said Peau had been walking around, but still became very tired. He could get short-tempered, had headaches and could not remember things.

She felt very grateful that all the nurses and doctors at the hospital were so patient.

The fact that Peau had survived made her feel very lucky, but she said what had happened to him was a warning for herself as a parent and for others.

Mrs Peleti said she did not blame anyone else for what had happened to her son because they were all drinking.

"They were all acting stupid and it could have easily been my son who did that. He was in the wrong too."

* A 15-year-old student has appeared in court on an assault charge in connection to the incident.