‘The little girl who beat up a truck’
A six-year-old dubbed ‘‘the little girl who beat up a truck’’ by her doctor has returned home.
Just two weeks after she was struck by a truck, Lani Rongokea is on the mend and has met the truck’s driver.
Lani was hit near an intersection in Palmerston North on February 9.
She was rushed to Palmerston North Hospital before being transferred to Starship children’s hospital in Auckland with a fractured skull, collapsed lungs and internal bleeding. She later had her spleen removed.
She returned home on Monday, but still requires physiotherapy.
Lani’s mother, Debbie Rongokea, said the family bore no ill-will toward the truck driver, and had invited him to visit Lani.
He and his wife stopped by their home on Tuesday, bearing heartfelt apologies and a Lego Friends set as a gift.
‘‘He was very happy to see she was alright, [and] Lani still can’t remember the accident, so she wasn’t sure who this man was at first,’’ Rongokea said.
‘‘It was a good healing process for all of us,
‘‘It was good for me to see he was okay too, I know it was an accident and I was really worried for him.’’
Talking over the incident had really helped them both, Rongokea said.
‘‘I said if there was ever anything he needed, he could just give me a call.’’
Lani was doing ‘‘really good’’, but she was bored and frustrated by not being able to play like she used to, Rongokea said.
Lani’s doctor had told them she was making a ‘‘remarkable recovery’’ and called her the ‘‘little girl who beat up the truck’’.
‘‘The doctor told us Lani will be able to have a full and happy life, that in 20 years it’ll be like it never happened.
‘‘He said we should get a t-shirt made for her saying; ‘I got hit by a truck, and it bounced right off me’.’’
Lani has physiotherapy sessions once a week and does daily exercises to help her rebuild her sense of balance, like walking an imaginary tightrope, or standing on one foot.
‘‘[It’s] things she used to do quite easily that she struggles with now. But she’ll get better at them,’’ Ronogkea said.
A police investigation into the crash was still ongoing.