Unsung Heroes: Accident can't stop 86-year-old helping others

Hazel Askew gets an unexpected push on the swing from her son, Dave Askew. Mrs Askew is walking again after being run over. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Crippled by internal injuries, crushed ribs and hips, 86-year-old Hazel Askew's first thought on opening her eyes in Auckland Hospital was not for her own well-being.

It was for the hundreds of people in Onehunga who depended on her to drop off food and clothing to their doorsteps.

An active member of St Stephen's Church, she exemplifies the principle of loving thy neighbour.

She has delivered parcels for the Onehunga foodbank for longer than she can remember.

In June last year she was carrying a tray of cakes to a disability conference when a van backed over her in a driveway. Hearing a bump, the motorist switched the vehicle into drive, and rolled over her again.

"I was conscious when it was running over me and all I could do was hold on to my favourite bit of scripture - 'And underneath there are everlasting arms'," she told the Herald.

Doctors did not expect Mrs Askew to live, but she woke a few days later, when she told her son Dave, who was sitting by her bedside, that "she'd be all right".

"But they told me I'd be flat on my back for six weeks. For someone who is on the go 24 hours a day that was just an impossibility."

Her son and her daughter Ruth picked up where she left off. Realising how enormous his mother's charity workload was, Mr Askew, 56, temporarily quit his job in house removal.

He took on part-time work in the evening, driving taxis, and after a few hours of sleep he delivered food parcels, as well as caring for his mother in hospital.

Mr Askew reacted modestly when asked about his contributions. "It's not a big thing, it's just what we do - it's what we've always done," he said. "When somebody has a bit of a hiccup you step in and help out, our mother taught us that."

Mr Askew, who has since gone back to the house removal business working with a friend's company, said his mother had spent her lifetime contributing to community projects and causes.

She would often give away more than was necessary - or healthy - by choosing not to take the prescribed morphine despite her intense pain as she was recovering in hospital.

"She thought there were people in there who needed it more ... but it was pretty bad for her so I had to tell her to use it to get better," said Mr Askew, who was about to take his mum out for dinner for a Mother's Day treat when the Herald spoke with him.

"She's a hero to me, mate, if you gave her $10 she'd give it to someone else before you walked out the door, that's just the kind of person she is."

Seven weeks after the car accident Mrs Askew urged her son to bring a metre rule into her ward, to mark a spot on the floor she could try to walk to.

Despite fainting on the first attempt, she painstakingly walked a metre farther each day, gradually working up the strength to walk around her ward. Ten months after the life-threatening accident, she is back at the foodbank, handling the administration.

She hopes to be driving next week so she can get back to the doorsteps of struggling families.

"I've been spared for some reason, and I think that's to keep helping people wherever I can.

"There's desperate need in the community.

"A lot of people just make do, but if the car breaks down, or school fees come up, they don't have that little extra they can call on."

Work at the foodbank fluctuated, she said, and in her spare time she taught handcrafts to the elderly, played the church organ at St Stephen's and worked as a volunteer at the Riding School for the Disabled.