Car crash survivor copes with more bad news

For Hastings teenager Jaydden Brittin it's been one heartbreak after another. Within two months he has lost a brother, four friends, and just last week was brought to tears when another mate was killed in a car accident.

All this while he recovers in hospital after a string of operations including heart surgery and knee reconstruction surgery from the July 29 crash in Windsor Ave, Hastings, that claimed four young lives.

The grieving community was dealt another blow last week when 18-year-old Johnathan Clifford Pryor was killed when his speeding car slammed into a tree just 2km from the site of the July 29 crash. The Brittin family knew Johnathan and Jaydden's father Darren and older brother Kade attended his funeral on Wednesday.

The crash brings to six the tally of young people killed on Hastings roads in a tragic two-month run that began with the death of 18-year-old Stephen Temperton - another friend of the Brittins - two weeks before the July 29 accident.

Speaking at length for the first time since the accident, Jaydden's mother Sonja Nicholls told the Herald on Sunday that he was steadily improving and doctors expected Jaydden to be on his feet within a month and walking within six months.

"We just have to get through the mental state of it now," Ms Nicholls said. "The physical side is going to take a couple of years, they said, but, mentally, who knows how long it's going to take for all of us."

She said the family was thankful Jaydden's injuries, while severe, could be healed. "He may have had everything else broken but he didn't have any head injuries, which means no brain damage. Which has been an absolute godsend really."

The 15-year-old hospitality student was seriously injured in the July 29 crash that killed Dylan Brittin, 16, Michael Jeffries, 17, Che Orbell-Pere, 17, and Alex Scales, 15.

The sixth passenger - the car's owner, 16-year-old Ricky Moulder - was moved from intensive care into a general ward in early August and then discharged from hospital at the end of the month.

Their vehicle, driven by Che, hit a totara tree at around 120km/h after more than 30m of braking. When locals who heard the crash arrived on the scene, Jaydden was conscious and lucid and was able to talk to his mother on a borrowed cellphone.

Ms Nicholls said that, according to hospital counsellors, Jaydden was coping well with the tragedy although he still got "very teary-eyed" when talking about his deceased brother and friends.

"Alex was Jaydden's best friend from when they were little and Che was Dylan's best friend, so they were always together. He feels like he's lost three brothers," Ms Nicholls said.

"We've lost a son and got a son in hospital and he's lost three brothers. How can that compare? I can't even begin to think what he's going through."

She said the families of the four boys killed that night were slowly coming to terms with their losses, even introducing humour to their frequent visits to Dylan and Che's neighbouring gravesites.

"They've even got to the stage where they're saying, 'We're just going out to Dylan and Che's place', when they go to the cemetery. At first, when I heard it, I just burst into tears. Now it's a little bit funny."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY