Death of mother leaves an aching hole for surviving family

Jesse Bennett hopes to walk again but has been confined to a wheelchair after his cousin's car collided with a stock truck in January. Photo / John Cowpland

Jesse Bennett is hoping for a miracle. Nearly a year after a horror car crash, which claimed the lives of his pregnant cousin and her two young sons, he hopes to learn to walk again. Still confined to a wheelchair, the former rugby player this week started a series of Botox injections to relax his clenched leg muscles. Specialists believe the treatment will enable him to learn to walk again.

For Jesse, this thread of hope is another step towards a painstakingly slow recovery after the crash, 11 months ago in Hastings, left him fighting for his life in intensive care suffering from serious head and chest injuries.

Bobbi-Jo Tua, 26, died instantly when her Mitsubishi Lancer slammed into a stock truck in January as she was driving Jesse, who had moved from Invercargill, to a job interview.

Tua's son Elijah, 5, was also killed and 22-month-old Ezekiel died in Starship hospital two days later after his life-support machine was turned off. Her daughter, Shaziah, now 7, survived the crash. The children's father, Mason Te Nahu, left work to care for the couple's remaining two children, Shaziah and Zion, 9. Although separated at the time, Te Nahu says he and his partner were still close.

When Bobbi-Jo, seven months pregnant, and her two boys were buried at Te Hauke, Jesse was still in intensive care in Hawke's Bay hospital. Seated in the Mitsubishi's passenger seat when it hit the stock truck, Jesse spent nearly three months in a coma

while his mother, Helen, and other family members kept a bedside vigil.

Helen Bennett talked constantly to her unconscious son, telling him about visitors who came to see him, what the machines connected to his body were doing, about Bobbi-Jo's tangi. Occasionally her son squeezed her hand, and she always believed he could hear her.

Gradually Jesse began opening his eyes, and eventually regained consciousness.

But the "out there, happy-go-lucky" sports-loving young man was unable to walk and since being discharged from hospital in August has been confined to a wheelchair.

With the help of intensive physio, occupational and speech therapy Jesse has made gradual progress. He has needed to relearn how to deal with every day situations, and is seeing a psychologist to help him cope with the changes in his life and the loss of Bobbi-Jo, his closest cousin.

Bennett had already told her son that he might not walk again.

"My nephew is in a wheelchair so he could understand the consequences of what that meant."

Now the Botox treatment has given them new hope.

"We are so happy he is on the road to recovery and learning to walk - little

baby steps each day," Bennett says.

Specialists have warned them it could take between six and 12 months for Jesse to learn to walk after the treatment.

Bennett says her son is "hanging out there to get back to work. He'd love to be a storeman again."

Nearly a year after the crash, the grief is still raw. Next month, on the anniversary of the crash, Te Nahu, Shaziah, Zion and other family members will make a pilgrimage to the crash site to erect a cross and hold a memorial service.

Yesterday,the family's first Christmas without Bobbi-Jo and the boys was tinged with sadness. The family spent it together at the Waipukurau home of Bobbi-Jo's mother Olive.

Shaziah and Zion talk about their mum"quite a bit", Te Nahu says.

"We always include her and talk about MJ [Elijah]. He would have started school this year. He was always smiling, he had the most amazing sparkling blue eyes, there was never a dull moment with him."

Ezekiel, known as Ezy, was "a bundle of joy". "He was a tough little guy. He was the boss, he ruled the roost."

Te Nahu says he had stayed the "best of mates" with his former partner and that they had still loved each other.

Every month, he takes his children to visit the gravesite. "You know it's still very hard for me to accept they are gone. There isn't a moment I don't think about them. But you know you have to carry on. I have these kids to look after.

"We don't talk about the crash but we talk about Mum and MJ and Ezy all the time so the kids don't forget them. When they ask about mum, we talk about mum."

Shaziah,who was in the back seat of the car with her two younger brothers, does not talk about the day she lost her mum and two brothers, and has had counselling to help her cope.

"I think she is still traumatised," Te Nahu says. "She is still coming to terms with what happened. MJ and Ezy were her special mates so she really feels that loss a lot."

Two months after Bobbi-Jo was buried, the family visited the stock driver's transport company in Hastings to meet the driver.

"We blessed the truck," says Te Nahu. "They put on a big meal for us. All their drivers were there so it was quite neat actually."

Te Nahu has gone back to work on a roading gang to get some normalcy back into his life.

"I still shed a few tears but you have to get over it and carry on, don't you?"

Helen Bennett, who has moved from Invercargill to Hastings to care for Jesse fulltime, holds no anger towards her niece Bobbi-Jo who, according to the coroner's report, became distracted, veered across the road and hit the truck.

"She was cool. She was a rock. She was always there for everybody."