George Nepata has won a top award at the Invictus Games 29 years after being paralysed in a training accident in Singapore for which he has never been compensated. Photo / NZ Defence Force
George Nepata has won a top award at the Invictus Games 29 years after being paralysed in a training accident in Singapore for which he has never been compensated. Photo / NZ Defence Force
A paralysed soldier who has twice been refused compensation for his injury has won a top award at the Invictus Games in Sydney.
George Nepata was paralysed when he was dropped head-first by soldiers carrying him up a slope on a stretcher during a training exercise in Singapore in 1989,leaving him a tetraplegic.
Team mates at the Invictus Games broke into a spontaneous haka when he was honoured with an "Exceptional Performance of the Games" award in front of Prince Harry at the game's closing ceremony in Sydney last night.
Nepata and other NZ team members are flying home to New Zealand with the prince and the Duchess of Sussex today.
Nepata's brother Damien Nepata was also injured in the army, suffering burns to 40 per cent of his body when the Scorpion tank he was driving rolled and caught fire during training at Waiouru army camp in July 1994.
Parliamentary select committees recommended in 2003 and again in 2013 that the brothers should be paid compensation, but both times successive Labour and National Cabinets refused to compensate them because it would have set a precedent.
The Defence Minister in 2013 Dr Jonathan Coleman said he had "huge sympathy'' for the brothers but their cases "could not be distinguished from those of numerous other soldiers who had been injured".
They received accident compensation and Defence Force benefits.
George Nepata with his mother Christine Kidwell, wife Kim, brother Damien, son Ngaheke and daughter Air Force Corporal Whakapono. Photo / NZ Defence Force
The NZ Defence Force reported todaythat George Nepata's family — wife Kim, daughter Air Force Corporal Whakapono, 14-year-old son Ngaheke, mother Christine Kidwell and brother Damien Nepata — were all in Sydney to see him honoured.
"For them to be there has just been overwhelming. I'm so proud," he told the Defence Force.
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"It was something I never expected and just came out of the blue. It was an awesome atmosphere going through the crowd, through the other competitors, just shaking their hands, high-fiving and clapping. It was just an overwhelming and humbling experience," he said.
"This has been a life-changing moment and experience that I've shared with my teammates. I'm just so proud of them all. They're all helping me."
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The Defence Force said Nepata's award "recognised his tremendous contribution to the NZDF's wheelchair rugby team, as the only team member fully dependent on a wheelchair he had to play all five games".
He had another special moment during the game against Australia, when the Australian and New Zealand teams combined to ensure he scored a try.
George Nepata (centre) had another special moment during the wheelchair rugby game against Australia, when the Australian and NZ teams combined to ensure he scored a try. Photo / NZ Defence Force
A spokesman for Defence Minister Ron Mark said Mark was reviewing the previous Cabinet decisions not to compensate the Nepata brothers.
"The minister is relooking at the Cabinet decisions to see whether there is any additional evidence to overturn those decisions," he said.
"He would have to take a paper to Cabinet, so it is going to take a bit of time."
The Invictus Games were founded by Prince Harry in 2014 for people injured in military service. The fourth games in Sydney involved 500 competitors from 18 nations competing in 11 sports.
