Relatives of a man who broke his neck while riding his bike into a Waihi sinkhole fear he will have a slim chance of rehabilitation.
"He's got no movement from the neck down - it does not appear too promising that they'll be able to rehabilitate him very much," David Keys' elder brother Ian said yesterday.
"It's that particular point in his neck he has knocked around." Ian Keys believed his 52-year-old brother, a weed-sprayer, was likely to remain in Middlemore Hospital's intensive care unit for some time.
"His condition is not looking too good," he said, adding that his brother was taking his predicament remarkably well, even though he could speak only in short bursts while a ventilator was removed from his face.
Mr Keys was found seven hours after falling into the hole in a park on Wednesday night.