Grieving mother praises 'super-dooper' BMX boy

Dion Felton. Photo / Supplied

A mother last night described the horror of finding her teenage son with a broken neck after a BMX crash, and the pain of losing him a week later to a chest infection.

Before Dion Felton died in hospital on Saturday, he was able to communicate only by blinking.

The 15-year-old was at the Whangarei BMX track on June 25 with his mother, Trudi Felton.

Dion was on his first run when he crashed and fell. He broke his neck and suffered what doctors later described as "catastrophic" damage to his spinal cord.

"Dion had been at me for weeks to take him down there so I took him down and unfortunately something was against him," Mrs Felton told the Herald last night.

"When he came off his bike it was just the way he fell ... He broke his neck."

At the time, Mrs Felton was walking up a ramp to a point where she was going to wait for Dion.

"He was very impatient when we got there, as children are, and I said, 'Why don't you just wait while I get afternoon tea stuff out of the car,' and he said, 'I want to go, I want to go."'

Mrs Felton followed him to the track but he had ridden away.

"He took off just before I got there - I was a few seconds too late. I was still walking up. I got there and he was gone."

Mrs Felton lost sight of Dion so called his name. When there was no answer, she went looking for him and found him lying unconscious with his crumpled bike.

"It was every parent's worst nightmare."

Mrs Felton knew from the day of the crash that Dion, who was taken to Whangarei Hospital before being flown in the Northland Emergency Services Trust helicopter to Auckland, was paralysed.

But she tried to stay positive.

"He was conscious all the time. We had communication by blinks and a letter chart ... When we showed him things he liked, his reaction was very obvious because his brain was perfect. They were worried about brain damage but it was perfect."

But as the week went on, Dion developed a chest infection.

"They warned us any infection would be really impossible for him to fight because of the weak state of his body. That's what took him in the end," Mrs Felton said.

Her son loved life. "He was my energetic super-dooper-couldn't-sit-still kid. He would put his jacket on and go for a ride on a wet day for half an hour just to burn energy."

Since his father, John, died a decade ago it had been just the two of them and his 18-year-old brother, Rhys. Dion had just joined Rhys working part-time at the Kerikeri New World supermarket.

"They were all just so impressed with his work ethic. They said to me his work ethic, his attitude and hard work were amazing for a 15-year-old."

Mrs Felton said Dion was an amazing child.

"Not one afternoon of his school days did he ever not come home - he didn't go and get into mischief. I've been a very lucky mum."

Dion's funeral will be in Kerikeri on Saturday.