Tough fight for brave Liam
Liam Powell was playing with friends on a beach when a sharp metal stake impaled him in the skull, writes Ruwade Bryant.
LIAM Powell thought he was going to die when a sharp stake impaled his skull - but the fact he made it out alive is a testament to his quick-thinking friends.
The 15-year-old was playing with friends at Sunkist Reserve in Beachlands, Auckland, in December when a day of fun went horribly wrong.
Liam was looking down at his phone, when a friend threw a real estate sign in the air. As he looked up, the sign holder pierced him in the skull.
‘‘I thought I was going to die. It was like, you can just feel it.
‘‘I actually thought I was dead for the first couple of days.’’
At first, Powell tried to pull the stake from his skull but was stopped by friends who had called 111, and his mother.
When emergency services arrived, he was lying on his side with the stake penetrating vertically into his skull.
One of his friends lay on the concrete, cradling his head to make sure the stake didn’t move. Other friends surrounded the pair.
The stake, which had embedded itself about 15cm into his head had caused so much damage he needed several surgeries.
Powell was put in a medically induced coma, and spent Christmas in hospital.
But on Boxing Day - his birthday - Liam took his first few steps since the accident. It was a moment his mum, Bridget Davy, will never forget. BEVAN READ/FAIRFAX NZ
‘‘You don’t really think about what it would have been like if it went the other way, you’re just really glad that it didn’t.’’
Davy didn’t initially realise the severity of her son’s injuries.
‘‘I was envisaging something a lot smaller, and not as deeply impaled,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s just so lucky that the boys did all the right things; kept him still, didn’t pull it out, called the ambulance. They just did nothing wrong really. If they hadn’t have done, then it would have been possibly quite different.’’
Powell is now in the recovery stage and has returned to school. He spends two hours in class on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays and has also started to ride his skateboard again.
His sense of humour has also returned. Although he was ‘‘relieved’’ he did not die, he was also a little disappointed.
‘‘I was kind of sad, because I wouldn’t live for eternity. Like when you’re in heaven, you live for eternity.’’