Jacob Papera managed to survive a catastrophic crash at the age of 16. The now 20-year-old is sharing his story in the hopes of helping bring road safety awareness to Northlanders. Photo / Supplied
Road Safety Week 2025 aims to educate motorists about driving safely after eight deaths in Northland road crashes this year.
The Advocate speaks with Jacob Papera, who in 2021 was left with catastrophic injuries that had his loved ones saying their last goodbyes.
In 2021, Jacob Papera had the whole world at his feet.
At 16, he’d just left school for work and was nine days into his role as a pipe welding apprentice.
It was June 15, and the first time he’d been out on a job in the work ute.
Papera said he remembered talking with his colleague about how he was going to spend his first pay cheque.
Instead, his plans to splurge on a new jacket at Hunting and Fishing were thwarted.
As Papera’s co-worker turned onto a rural Glenbervie road on the outskirts of Whangārei, he was blinded by sunstrike.
Unbeknownst to him, a cattle truck and trailer had been approaching and smashed into the left side of the vehicle.
Papera bore the brunt of what should have been an unsurvivable crash.
He has no recollection of the days and weeks that followed, but information from others has supplied him with the basics.
He suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken jaw, a punctured lung, facial fractures, a fractured T1 at the upper part of his spine, broken ribs, a fractured sternum and intra-oral injuries.
Papera was rendered unconscious, and doctors placed him in an induced coma.
Family and friends were unsure he would survive.
Instead, almost four years later, he is walking, talking and eating – all things he had to learn to do again.
“It was hard because I was happy as I made progress, that really sort of cheered me up, but then at the same time, I did get sick of it because I just wanted to be back to normal.”
Papera said that within a few weeks, he was planning his return to work.
But the process would turn out to be much more challenging and prolonged than he could have expected.
“Once I recovered a bit more, I think I did realise how bad it was and how lucky I am,” he said.
The shocking images of the accident that police shared with him also brought it home, he said.
Papera said his experience inspired him to become a road safety advocate.
It took so much effort from family, doctors and more to bring him to where he was today, he said.
“It’s not worth going through it.”
“I don’t want to see other people go through the same thing, because it’s not nice. It’s not nice for anyone.”
Papera believes it is the fact that he cannot remember the crash that he is able to not only be in a car, but drive around.
But that doesn’t stop him from being a “pretty cautious” driver, he said.
His message to people this Road Safety Week is to be a smart driver.
“There is a lot to it. And when you’ve got so many risks and so many dangers, and then you put other stuff like drugs and alcohol or don’t wear your seatbelt - you’re just making those risks so much higher.”
Papera is now 20, and he’s desperate to get back to work.
At the moment, he is still unable to return.
But he said it was the drive of wanting to get his life back that kept him going.
“You definitely need an end goal.”
Brodie Stone covers crime and emergency for the Northern Advocate. She has spent most of her life in Whangārei and is passionate about delving into issues that matter to Northlanders and beyond.
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