‘We can’t believe he’s gone’
Grandmother tells of watching son trying to free dying eldest boy from crashed car
The moment Dorothy Watson saw her son trying desperately to free his dying eldest boy from his crushed vehicle will haunt the Te Puke grandmother forever.
Paruhi Watson, 23, was driving home to his Manoeka Rd family homestead just after 6pm on Sunday when his car struck a lamppost and crashed into a tree.
Mr Watson was trapped inside the vehicle on Jellicoe St and died soon after.
His first cousin and front-seat passenger, whose name has been withheld at the family’s request, is in a serious but stable condition in Tauranga Hospital. He has begun talking but has no recollection of the crash.
Mrs Watson said she and her son Mackie Watson Jr came across the crashed vehicle before emergency services got there, as they headed home from a shopping trip.
“We must have been right behind them and didn’t know it until my son recognised the car and immediately jumped out and desperately tried to open the door to get to Paruhi.
“It was just awful and we still can’t believe he’s gone. It’s been a huge shock, he was only 23. We will all miss Paruhi very much,” she said.
Paruhi’s aunt Rutu Watson said her nephew had just moved back to Te Puke from Australia with his wife Jade and their two preschoolers.
Paruhi had just begun to reestablish himself in the area, and Rutu Watson said the couple planned to build a new home.
Rutu Watson, who flew home from Western Australia on Saturday, said the family were close-knit and everyone had taken Paruhi’s death extremely hard.
“It was such a beautiful day on Sunday, and earlier in the day Paruhi had us all in fits as he helped his siblings and other family build a longdrop toilet on the homestead,” she said.
She described her nephew as a “happy, loving, super family-focused” person.
“He was so cheeky, mischievous and a right character who often had us crying with laughter over some of the things he came out with,” she said.
He loved going hunting and collecting kai with his brothers and cousins and also sitting around trading jokes and stories with family.
Paruhi was the first of his generation in the family to die, and was being primed to take over the mantle from his grandfather Mackie Watson Sr, a well-respected Waitaha kaumatua, she said.
“In our family we don’t just love, we love hard, and Paruhi’s death has had a huge blow to our whole family,” Rutu Watson said.
An autopsy was being undertaken in Rotorua yesterday. Once Paruhi’s body was released back to his family he would lie at Hei Marae and arrangements for his tangi were being finalised.
Head of Western Bay of Plenty road policing Senior Sergeant Ian Campion said the crash was still being investigated, and this was the sixth road fatality in the district this year.