Wheelchair-bound 'special boy' goes out with one last joke

Trinity Chase. Photo / Supplied

Trinity Dylan Henare Chase, 16, took his final breath at Tuwharetoa Marae sports day at the weekend.

The teenager had muscular dystrophy, but friends and family were remembering a boy they said had a heart of gold and an eye for the ladies.

Trinity, from Kakahi, a small village 10km from Taumarunui, had been joking with his cousin about the cute netball players on the court from the sidelines when he went into his wheelchair-adapted van parked on the side of the court to rest.

His mother, Karena Taumata, was napping beside him and woke up a few minutes later to find he had died .

Speaking from the Kakahi Marae yesterday, at Trinity's tangi, his uncle Lionel Taumata paid tribute to the little fighter - few with the disease made it to their teens, he said.

"He just died peacefully on the sideline in his van," his uncle said.

"It's sort of like a big burden has been lifted off our shoulders at the moment. But because we have all sort of experienced it before we sort of all know how to cater to each other and how to help each other. "

By the age of 12 Trinity was confined to a wheelchair and could not even feed himself.

"He couldn't move his hands more than two or three inches for about the last three or fours years of his life."

But that did not stop him from attending Taumarunui High School, texting friends, playing PlayStation and cruising around Kakahi in his electric wheelchair with friends in tow.

He was also a "bit of a ratbag", his uncle said.

"The boys (including Trinity's cousin Lionel) said the last thing he ever said to anybody was they were watching netball and one of the girls bent down to do up her shoelaces and he said: 'Oooh, I like pink undies.' And all the boys were cracking up and that's the last thing he ever said to these boys."

Another uncle, Les Taumata, also recalled him having an eye for the ladies and said it must have been the netball players who finally took his breath away. "He was a special boy. He had a heart of gold."

The muscle-wasting disease is hereditary in the Taumata family. Ms Taumata's eldest brother also died from it and two other sons have it as well.

Trinity was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at birth and by age 7 it had started affecting the way he walked.

He is the sixth member on his mother's side of the family to have the debilitating disease and fought hard, surviving even after his family once made the heartbreaking decision to turn life-support off. Trinity surprised both them and medical staff and recovered.

Yesterday, his family said it was a blessing he died surrounded by about 400 people and doing what he enjoyed after a year spent in and out of Waikato Hospital.

His family had feared the youngster would die on his own in the hospital.

A service for Trinity will be held at the Kakahi Marae at 11am today followed by a burial.