Real-life reads
Proposal after tragedy; Racy gran
Standing in a busy beachside park, beside a teepee topped with bright summer flowers, Auckland tradie Nathan Niha bent a shaky knee to propose to his love Esther Ayres. For shy Nathan, 25, the romantic public gesture in Mission Bay was a brave step, yet it was nothing compared to surviving a near-fatal farm buggy accident with his 22-year-old girlfriend two years before. Speaking with Woman’s Day near their home on Auckland’s North Shore, the couple describe meeting five years ago via a dating app and quickly bonding over dinner, despite their opposite personalities. Introvert Nathan smiles as he talks about falling for loud Esther’s zest for life. “She ticks all the boxes and puts up with me – and that’s difficult!” Esther smiles at her “shy but hilarious and kind” beau, noting how lucky she is to still have him after they rolled 30 metres off a cliff at Nathan’s family y farm behind Pahiatua, , in the Tararua Ranges.
Nathan, who had ridden through the hills since he was a child, explains, “It was pretty rainy and we were coming down the bank on a Polaris Ranger [an off-road buggy], and as we drove around the corner, it locked. When that happens, you accelerate and it usually comes out of it, but we just went into the corner faster and rolled off a cliff.”
Esther describes the moment they plunged down the hill, falling between jagged rocks. “It went in total slow motion. It sounds horrible, but as soon as I started falling, I felt like that was it. I just accepted that I was going to die. I think that’s what saved me, actually, because I was quite relaxed, so I didn’t break any bones.”
Batteredbody
But Nathan, a floorer by trade, suffered a broken right shoulder and his leg was pierced right through by something on the tumble. He explains, “If you fall like that, you feel the thuds the whole way down. Your body is getting absolutely beaten up.” When W he came to a stop, Nathan’s first instinct was to t call out to Esther, who was w lying on a rain-soaked bank b metres up from him, badly b bruised and having d difficulty breathing because o of the shock. “I remember calling out to her and she didn’t make a sound. I didn’t know if she was w brain dead or what, and I was w thinking, ‘Have I killed my girlfriend?’” After the relief of finding her alive, Nathan went into shock, leaving a terrified Esther searching his pockets for his phone as hers had been lost during the tumble.
Esther, a pizza shop manager, recalls, “I wasn’t thinking straight, so instead of calling 111, I rang Nathan’s dad because it was the first contact I saw and a dad is always a good person to call!”
After being driven half an hour to Palmerston North Hospital, Nathan went in for immediate shoulder surgery, while medics worked to bring Esther’s heart rate back down.
The couple’s love was
tested again when avid rugby player Nathan fell into a deep depression during his sevenmonth recovery.
He explains, “I had two surgeries because they got the first one wrong. I couldn’t play sports or lift weights at the gym and I couldn’t work. I’d be awake for days at a time because of the drugs they put me on and it all got to me.”
Nathan says Esther was there for him through it all, “trying to keep me positive”.
Three months after the accident, Esther made the decision to start a gruelling half-year training regime for competitive bodybuilding, doing so well that she won the New Zealand Naturals Championship in Auckland.
The blonde beauty says, “I’d always thought about it, then the accident made me realise something can happen to you at any time. Nathan sat there with his broken wing supporting me along the way.”
In January, Nathan won a full picnic proposal package through online competition A Picnic Setup, with the couple’s story of survival and love standing out from all the other entrants.
Coaxing his unknowing soon-to-be fiancée into wearing a blindfold on a warm Saturday evening, Nathan led her past the Mission Bay restaurant where they’d had their first date, towards an elegant picnic overlooking the beach.
Beside scattered rose petals and chilled champagne, he told Esther to take off her blindfold. After she got over her surprise, he told her, “Last year, you stuck with me through my recovery and for that, I can never be more thankful. You are my best mate and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, so will you marry me?”
Today Esther teases, “It came out more like one long mumble, but he’d written it all down and showed it to me later!”
In front of curious onlookers and Nathan’s family, Esther was quick to respond with a “Yes”.
“I was just so impressed because Nathan’s a really shy guy and he’d put himself in this crazy situation just for me, which made it extra special,” she smiles.
“It was definitely a dream come true.”