Teen assault victim recovering at home
After being hit over the head for his bag, a Taranaki teenager lay unconscious with a fractured skull and brain bleed as his attacker sped off in a car.
The 14-year-old, who can’t be named due to his age and police concerns for his safety, is now back from Wellington Hospital and recovering at his Bell Block home.
On Wednesday, the teen said his first memory after the Easter Monday incident was waking to members of the public crowded around him at the Mangati Rd car park beside Bell Block beach.
It was somewhere he often went to hang out with friends, and occasionally to go fishing.
‘‘We just went for a walk, we wanted to see what the ocean was like.’’
He was with one friend around 5.20pm, when he said he saw a car approaching him.
‘‘The car pulled up and [he] asked me for my bag. I said no, and he tried pulling my bag away,’’ the teenager said.
‘‘Then he hit me over the head. I kind of only remember really waking up on the ground with people around me.’’
The person who took the bag then jumped into a vehicle that was driven away.
Inside the teen’s bag was $60 worth of bike tools, and $70 cash with which he planned to buy Spotify and Xbox cards.
The teenager was taken to Taranaki Base Hospital, where he received two CT scans, his father said.
It was established the teen had a fractured skull and small brain bleed on the left side of his head, and he was flown to Wellington Hospital in the early hours of Tuesday morning, April 6, to be monitored.
He was brought back to Taranaki in the days that followed.
‘‘Healthwise, he’s doing really, really well,’’ his father said.
‘‘It could have been way worse,’’ he said.
The man admits he was ‘‘very, very angry’’ at first, but was now pleading for someone to come forward.
Officers are still searching for the vehicle, which is described as a two-tone, dark-coloured vehicle, similar in shape to an early model Toyota Caldina.
Police have also asked anyone along Mangati Rd with CCTV cameras facing the road to get in touch.
They encourage anyone with information to get in contact with the New Plymouth Police Station.