An alleged home invader, who had the tables turned on him by the man he attacked, remains in a critical condition in Hawke's Bay Hospital's intensive-care unit.
Police have completed two scene examinations following an attack on a sleeping father late Saturday night.
A 33-year-old forestry worker, who asked to not be identified, said his partner answered the front door at their Mcvay St home in Napier South shortly before midnight where a man "just barged through her, looked into my lounge and at the kids in the games room, came upstairs where I was asleep and started attacking me with the hammer". He woke to find a man "standing on the bed over me".
"I think he might have punched me a couple of times because all I saw was a fist coming down towards my face," he said.
The attacker had a hammer, which the men wrestled for while his partner and four of his children looked on. The intruder asked the father what he was doing in the intruder's house. The family have lived there for 18 months.