KEY POINTS:
The parents of a schoolboy whose dreams of becoming an All Black have been shattered by a freak tackle say they don't blame the player responsible.
Seventeen-year-old Robert Hickland suffered a broken neck after being crushed in a maul following a regulation challenge as he represented Feilding High against Masterton's Rathkeale College last Saturday.
The powerful fullback, who planned to try out for the Hurricanes' development side, was this week drifting in and out of consciousness in the intensive care unit at Christchurch Hospital, where he was transferred from Masterton.
The all-round sportsman needs a respirator to breathe, can communicate only by nodding and is being fed through a tube.
His mother Pepe said her "chirpy" son, who would do "anything for anybody", has only a 50/50 chance of regaining the feeling in his arms and legs.
But his brain is undamaged and she and her husband Mike are praying he will walk again.
"We've got our hopes up. That's what we are focusing on. We don't want to think 'no, he's not going to walk again, he's going to be a paraplegic'."
Pepe and Robert's girlfriend, fellow seventh-former Rachel Goss, were watching from the sideline when he was tackled.
"It was big but it wasn't too strenuous and then the maul on top crushed him," said Pepe.
"We all went rushing to him and then he came to. He was in a lot of pain. When he went to Masterton hospital they sedated him because his neck was broken."
Pepe said they thought Robert might die "because he was in so much pain. It was touch and go because he was on life support".
Doctors pushed Robert's neck back into line and inserted a metal plate between his broken fourth and fifth vertebrae before he was transferred to Christchurch.
Pepe said Robert was too sedated to realise the extent of his injuries but she and Mike, who have three older daughters in their close-knit family, keep asking if he's all right.
"He'll nod, then he'll drift off to sleep, then open his eyes as if nothing has been said to him," she said. "He's just in a daze."
She and her husband want to hear from the boy, who was devastated after tackling her "baby".
"Michael and I just want to tell him, 'go hard - because this has happened don't let that get you down'.
"We don't blame him at all, I feel so sorry for him, my heart goes out to him. The whole of the 1st XV team at Rathkeale College - our heart goes out to them, too, because the whole team is feeling it."
Mike raced to Masterton hospital after hearing about the injury and had to tell his son he'd snapped two vertebrae.
"He looked at me and just looked away. He didn't say a hell of a lot but you could feel his pain."
Mike said the principals and pupils at both schools had been "incredible" and he wanted to thank the staff at both hospitals and well-wishers from around New Zealand.
"Everybody rings us and says 'it must be hard on you' but the ones it's hardest on are him and his girlfriend. Rachel and her family have been amazing. They have been here since day one and they're still here."
Robert - whose favourite player is All Black captain Richie McCaw - is being treated by eight surgeons.
He is due to come off the respirator in two or three weeks but faces eight months' rehabilitation in Christchurch.
Mike said it was hard to see him in hospital. "But it's our job as parents to be here - not because we have to be, but because we want to be here. I will be here till I take my boy home."
