Feature
One night out hunting
by Venetia Sherson
Briton Matthew Purchase was on a dream visit to New Zealand when he was shot in the head while rabbit hunting. His family face big medical bills on their return home – and can’t sue the man charged over the incident.
Helen Purchase is humming to her son Matthew. She lifts his hand and places his fingers gently on her throat so he can feel the vibration. After a minute, he begins to hum, too.
She enters the details in a diary. For the past seven weeks, she has recorded the minutiae of their daily lives at Waikato Hospital and now Phoenix House rehabilitation centre in Hamilton. She notes Matthew’s movements; the pressure of his hand as he squeezes hers; his responses to questions; the people and events he remembers.
So far, he has recalled bungy jumping in Taupo, skydiving and white-water rafting. He can remember the name of his black labrador, Monty, at home on the family farm in Dorset, England. And when two Australian friends drop in unexpectedly, he greets them by name without prompting.
His parents, Helen and Ian, cling to those moments. It is an indication that their 21-year-old son is coming back to them, piece by piece. “Every memory is precious,” they say.
But one memory may always elude him. It is from the night of December 8 last year when a bullet fired from a .22 rifle at point-blank range slammed through the back of his head, shattering his skull and destroying most of the right side of his brain. Ian Purchase says when Matthew asked him how he was injured, he was deliberately vague.
On December 8, Ian and Helen Purchase were at home in Wimborne, Dorset, preparing for Christmas and looking forward to meeting up with Matthew in New Zealand, where he was undertaking a six-month programme with AgriVenture, an international exchange association.
Matthew had been working on a South Waikato dairy farm. His emails and calls suggested he was having a wonderful time. “He was living his dream,” says Ian, who also visited New Zealand on an Agri‑Venture exchange when he was Matthew’s age. “He has always been very sporty and he loves the outdoors. New Zealand was like a huge adventure playground.”
The exchange programme also gave him the chance to meet young people from other countries. He had recently graduated from Reading University with a degree in rural resource management and saw the trip to New Zealand as an opportunity to further his agricultural skills and extend his networks. His long-term plan was to take over the family farm when his father retired.
Ian was out pheasant shooting when he received a message from AgriVenture, saying there had been an accident involving his son. Matthew had been shot while hunting rabbits at night with six others on a farm at Waotu, 10km southwest of Putaruru. Details were sketchy, but it appeared the hunters had been travelling in the back of a utility van using high-powered lights to identify their prey.
The shooting happened about 11.00pm and, as there was no cellphone coverage, Matthew had to be driven to a house about 10 minutes away. He was taken to Waikato Hospital by air ambulance. A call from the New Zealand police said the family should be prepared for the worst. “How do you take in information like that?” says Ian. “The last time we had seen Matthew, he was a fit and active young man.”
The Purchases immediately left for New Zealand and arrived at Waikato Hospital in Hamilton two days later. They were taken to Matthew’s bedside, where he was deeply sedated.
Ian says he knows from his hunting experience the damage a bullet from a .22 can do to a wild animal. But nothing prepared him for the damage it had done to his son’s brain.
The bullet entered his head just behind and slightly above his right ear. The initial wound was like a puncture wound, about a centimetre in diameter. Beneath the bandage, brain tissue was seeping from the wound and Matthew’s right ear and his head was swollen and distorted. “We knew it was Matthew by his physique,” says Ian, “but his head was totally unrecognisable.”
The clinical director of neurosurgery at Waikato Hospital, Dr Venkataraman Balakrishnan, examined Matthew on his arrival. “The good news was that I knew Matthew was not going to die. The bullet had shattered the skull and destroyed part of the right side of the brain, but it had missed the brain stem by about 2-3cm. If it had hit the brain stem, he would have been dead. However, the blasting effect from the bullet had still done a lot of damage to the surrounding bone and brain tissue. The bullet had hit part of the skull and changed direction. It had lodged close to his right eye. There was a vast amount of swelling.”
Because Matthew was right-handed, Balakrishnan knew that although the injury would leave him paralysed on the left side, it would not affect his speech or the use of his right hand. Plus, he was young and his brain was still developing. “This type of brain may mend itself.”
He relayed these details to Ian and Helen Purchase in his consulting room and added, “‘I can’t give Matthew back to you 100 percent, but I can give Matthew back.’”
Ian said they asked a lot of questions about the quality of Matthew’s life. “Dr Bala would give no guarantees. What he said was that Matthew had survived, was still surviving and would continue to survive. He thought it was worth the fight.”
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