A father's pain: Grieving for God's child

Grahame Thorne has been at his son David's side in Christchurch Hospital since he suffered a stroke two weeks ago. Picture / John McCombe

The white-walled room on level three of Christchurch Hospital's neurological ward is overflowing with visitors. An outsized, cushy black chair by the window contains an old family friend. At the foot of the bed stand his mother and more friends, flanked by his father who is half in the corridor, cellphones in both pockets. The older brother takes the other chair.

And in the middle of all this, lies David Thorne, 20, stretched out on the narrow hospital bed, brown eyes scanning his visitors like a caged dog. He looks handsome lying there in his navy tracksuit pants and brown T-shirt, left leg bent at the knee, toes twitching, begging, perhaps, for a massage.

In repose he is a beautiful child. Glossy light-brown hair falling back off his face, smooth young skin, rosy lips. Then there's the worrying part - the flush that points to his newly diagnosed urinary tract infection and another infection where the feeding tube went into his arm.

When he smiles the tragedy hits home: only one side of his mouth lifts.

Says his father, fighting back tears 10 days after it all happened, pointing to the name tag outside David's door under which one of his mates has scrawled his nick-name: "The Legend": "David. God's child."

Two weeks ago Thorne, a talented, goal-kicking utility back, suffered a stroke after a rugby match for Waimea Old Boys in Nelson. The tackle that felled him attracted little attention. Sure it was a little high, but we've come to accept that as part of the game.

And, unusually, neither his father nor mother was watching. The former star All Black centre Grahame Thorne, known universally as Thorney, had left after his son was subbed off, assuming he would not be played again. "We never went back on in my day, weren't allowed to." His mother Briony was at a quilting class.

It wasn't until later, well after the feeling in his leg and arm should have returned and he was home, that David texted a mate who had broken his back five years before. The reply was explicit: "Go to the hospital".

Thirty minutes later David and his father arrived at Nelson Hospital. The wait, behind another rugby player with a hand injury, was interminable. Meanwhile, over those two hours, the blood clot in David's carotid artery was growing, hardening.

The stroke occurred as he emerged from x-ray. The effect on his brain was swift and extensive. By the time he arrived in Christchurch's intensive care unit the next morning, the damage was done, say the experts.

His mother, her serene smile set like concrete, says: "the MRI scan was awful. The whole left side of his brain was affected. Luckily the front of his brain, which he hasn't damaged, is where your personality is.

"It's not how these things happen, it's how you deal with them," says Briony. "It's a huge learning curve. You shake yourself awake in the morning and realise, 'Yes, it is true'."

She is sitting on a velvety calfskin rug on the sofa in one of their best friend's homes in Christchurch, with a cigarette. Her two elder children, Gareth, 24, and Hannah, 22, who is due to be capped BA Psych (first class hons) today, have just demolished a cold leg of lamb, hummus, pate and bread in the granite-and-steel kitchen. Now they've headed off to shop for more food - and avoid the photographer.

This vigil is a family affair. Hannah has extended her trip from Brisbane. Hamish, 18, and the youngest sibling, is begging to come home from his gap year job at Winchester School, England. Bruce, 35, from Thorne's first marriage to South African Jenny-Lynne Busby, is a constant caller. Briony's elderly, beautifully spoken parents in Auckland have their St Heliers parish praying.

Meanwhile Grahame, Briony and Gareth are at Christchurch Hospital - opposite Hagley Park, where Thorne scored 51 runs playing cricket for Auckland in 1964. They will be here for as long as it takes. Each mourns in their own way. While Thorney relies on his legion of friends to carry him through the trauma, Briony, and her children, are more private.

But make no mistake, this is a family suffering horribly. While the youngsters are stony-faced, Thorney, whose glory days of 1967-1973 are the highlight of a big, wide, sprawling life, pounces on his cellphone like a lifeline, greeting every caller as a potential saviour.

Most of them are rugby mates - "that was Doug Catley. He said, when David's better to come and watch the rugby in his box".

Strangers who hail him from cabs, in cafes, out of the windows of trucks offering sympathy and best wishes, bring tears behind the pale blue eyes.

Among the dozens of famous callers are Ian Kirkpatrick, Wynand Claasen (captain 1981 Springbok tour), Douglas Myers, Grizz Wylie, cricket selector Ross Dykes, Don Brash, Murray Deaker, John Graham and former All Black captains Fred Allen and Kevin Skinner.

Only in tiny chinks in the conversation does he admit his son, the one he hoped would carry on the dazzling rugby tradition he started, will probably never play again.

Briony, with her deep-down grit, understands her husband. "It's his way of coping," she says. "He has two cellphones and walks up and down hospital corridors talking. That's what keeps him going."

And then, charitable and graceful as always, "He's a people person".

Her four children are remarkably different from each other. "I'm a great believer in star signs," says the former hurdles champion and St Kentigern College English teacher, who was sent to board at Kenya Girls High when she was eight. "David has that great compassion, love of animals. He's extremely kind to people and very fiery as well. He takes things head-on."

He also gave his parents "a lot of heartache, a lot of stress".

Born in 1985 when the family was still living at Tawa Rd, Onehunga, and his father was a curly-headed TV sports presenter and city councillor, David was the physical one.

A family photo, taken when he was five, shows his little hands on the rugby ball. His mother remembers a child who was physically gifted, who, even at kindergarten, would do the most daring things on the trampoline. She called him God's child. "He could skateboard, play tennis, play golf - and was happiest outside."

When the family left for Blenheim in 1997 and the boys sent to board at Nelson College, David took off one day with a bunch of girlfriends and was expelled from the boarding house. But, as always, he found a way around the problem. "He went to board with the headmaster."

It was David, their blithe spirit, who cultivated dreadlocks, David who left school at the beginning of the sixth form for a job as a shepherd at Erewhon Station and quit soon after he cut off his third finger, left hand, while working the wood splitter.

As his mother says, his sporting brilliance gave him so many options. "If he doesn't like what he's doing he won't do it."

He didn't like much. A coveted place at Murray Mexted's International Rugby Academy in Wellington when he was 17, led to a colts' contract to play for Leicester Tigers in England. He lasted two days. "He said, 'F ... this, I'm going'," says Thorney. "He went around the world in 80 hours. Didn't like it, even though his brother was there."

"Is he like Grahame?" I ask Briony.

The smiles stretches: "Absolutely".

David was, of course, living in the shadow of an All Black and first class cricketer in a country where men, especially, treat such people as gods.

Then Thorney turned to politics, moving up until he became the National MP for Onehunga. He was also personally outrageous and one of the most gregarious people imaginable. He cried in Parliament, loved women, had his hair permed and appeared on TV sporting a crazy crop of curls. A walk down the street with the kids can turn into a marathon as Thorney meets and greets, leaving the children seething.

Briony made and marketed Christmas cakes and ran a cooking school. Thorney turned himself into a wine expert and writer and even started connoisseur classes.

Their South Island dream was to start again, and they did, first in Blenheim, where they established a cooking school, B&B and their own vineyard. Next came a move to Methven, followed by Upper Moutere and a second vineyard, in 2004. Now, that house is on the market. "This year," says Briony, "I did the pruning myself."

But the centre of Thorney's life, North Island or South, was rugby. And now rugby has turned on him. Although he and Briony are determined not to blame the game for David's stroke, you can see the resolve crumbling. He talks in snatches, between phone calls, other interruptions and his own musings, about how much tougher the game is. "In our day you tackled round the legs and no hands in rucks. Now it's round the nipples and TV highlights the hits - the hit of the week."

"There's no empirical evidence yet about what happens to professional rugby players in five years' time," he continues. "It's a new game."

As for the tackle that stopped his son: "He was grabbed by his protective head gear and collar. From that moment on he couldn't feel his arm or leg."

By the time his son is admitted to Burwood Hospital's stroke rehabilitation unit on Thursday there's more focus about Thorney. Although "the OC [occupational therapist] said David probably won't get movement back in his right arm," and he's grappling with the finality of it all, he can stay on the subject for more than a few seconds.

He doesn't cut you off when the second cellphone rings and only shares a couple of sentences - each - with the people who constantly interrupt to offer their support. "It's just amazing," he says. "People I've never seen, never met, stop to talk. A lady almost crashed the car."

He is also angry. "The Tasman Rugby Union has just talked to me and they say they can't really pinpoint the tackle that injured David. We know what happened. It was a dangerous tackle. David couldn't feel his right arm and leg afterwards."

"Did you tell them that?" I ask.

"Yes, but they don't want to know, do they? It's a spinner.

"They're a law unto themselves. Don't give a rat's arse about anybody. They think they're god."

On the other hand, the Rugby Foundation, set up to support the families of injured rugby players, "put a couple of grand" in Thorney's account after David was injured, paid for Hannah to fly to Dunedin to arrange her graduation and will support the family while David is at Burwood.

And at this stage, neither Thorney's brilliant career nor amazing contacts are worth much at all. David's condition is hardening, his prognosis uncertain. He cannot speak or move his right arm below the shoulder.

"Eyesight, we don't know. Speech, we don't know," says his father. The sight of Burwood's other stroke victims on their walkers has caused "a little bit of a downer today".

On the other hand, God's child is already down there doing his exercises, focusing on his recovery. He will be here for six months minimum, the regime, physical and mental, will be rigorous.

Maybe, as a friend said to Briony, this time David will have to apply himself. He really has run out of options.