It's been a tough three months for 18-year-old Quejay Hoare, who lay in a coma for weeks with his life hanging in the balance.
"They pretty much told me that he wasn't going to come out of this or if he did he'd be brain damaged," says Quejay's mother, Juliana Windsor.
The teenager sustained a head injury and bleeding on the brain after the car he was a passenger in crashed at a busy Auckland intersection.
Quejay's whanau believe he wouldn't have had to fight for his life if police had called paramedics the night of the accident.
"The first thing they should have done is call an ambulance, it's a crash site. It's pretty much the first thing you do when you have an accident. I don't think they did a good job that night," Juliana says.
This time last year Quejay was an active, energetic teenager, taking to the stage at Polyfest for his Whangaparaoa College kapa haka team. Twelve months on, the teenager is relearning to walk again in rehabilitation and faces the biggest test of his young life.
"I'm active a lot of the time but just with this and everything I'm not active anymore, and I don't do anything. It's really hard to get through my day," Quejay says.
Doctors told Quejay's whanau that although he was young and fit, his future was uncertain.
"They pretty much told me that he wasn't going to come out of this or if he did he'd be brain damaged. I fell apart then," Juliana adds.
Quejay and his friends had been drinking at a birthday party and accepted an offer of a lift into the city to attend a concert. They were almost at the venue when the driver of the car Quejay was a passenger in allegedly ran a red light and was hit by an oncoming car.
What happened after the crash isn't clear, but police turned up to the accident site and interviewed the boys.
Eighteen-year-old Kaylan Nolan is Quejay's childhood friend, and struggles to talk about the night of the accident when he almost lost his best mate.
"I was on the impact side and then it was this big blur from then on," Kaylan recalls.
Kaylan had a gash to his forehead and was bleeding, but he says police never mentioned calling an ambulance to check the boys.
Despite Kaylan's obvious injury and Quejay appearing to be heavily intoxicated, Police never requested a medical assessment. Instead Kaylan was left to send Quejay home in an Uber, not realising that he was suffering a severe head injury.
When Kaylan returned from the concert six hours later, he found Quejay unconscious in the back of his car outside Kaylan's home.
"If there was an ambulance he would've been in hospital when it all started happening, not lying in the back of his car in my driveway," Kaylan says.
Juliana is also critical of her dealing with those investigating the crash.
"I don't even know where it actually happened. I don't actually have an actual clear story on what happened that night," she says.
Despite the severity of his injuries, Quejay has made a remarkable recovery and exceeding his doctor's expectations.
Quejay was working and had plans of becoming a teacher or social worker, but now those ambitions are on hold as he concentrates on rebuilding his life.
"Quejay's lost a big chunk of his life a little bit. He was on the rise for things, he was going to study and then this accident happened and he's been put back a couple of years," Juliana adds.
The family are considering complaining to the Independent Police Complaints Authority.
Meanwhile the 19-year-old driver of the car involved in the accident faces serious careless driving charges, and will appear in court in December.
Quejay's supporters have set up a Givealittle page to help his whanau with the financial loss he and his family have suffered.
The Hui
