KEY POINTS:
A young farmhand who had both legs burned off in a horrific accident has vowed to walk off the plane when he returns home to Ireland.
Twenty-year-old Kevin McGarry was trapped under a burning bike for 30 agonising minutes after crashing into an electric fence on a Waikato farm.
Desperately scrabbling to keep his torso away from the intense flames, Kevin drifted in and out of consciousness, until he was found by another farmhand, who called for help.
He woke to find his legs had been amputated above the knees in a bid to save his life. He now faces years of rehabilitation to recover from severe burns to half his body.
But the young Irishman, in New Zealand on a working holiday, is determined to return home walking, with the help of prosthetic legs.
"At the moment, I'm taking one day at a time. But I'm not going home in a wheelchair," he says.
Kevin set off on the farm bike early one August morning to get the cows into the milking shed before his boss arrived.
Travelling in the dark, he crashed into an electric fence, snaring the bike's front wheel in the wires.
With thousands of volts coursing through his body, his legs were pinned under the bike and the constant electric shocks stopped him from lifting it to escape.
Then, a spark ignited the petrol which had spilled from the tank.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Kevin remembers little of the horrific experience but others have filled in the gaps.
His farmer boss, an ex-paramedic, threw himself over the injured man to shield him from the flames, pulled him clear of the bike, then carried him back to the Hamilton farmhouse.
"The flames were so hot. The last thing I can remember is looking down at my legs and seeing nothing but black."
Kevin admits he is lucky to be alive.
Surgeons at Hamilton Hospital operated to stabilise him so he could be flown to Middlemore Hospital in Auckland.
Since the accident, he has had countless operations, spent two months in intensive care and is recovering at the National Burns Centre in Middlemore.
He can't go outside because of the risk of infection, but his parents and brother Keith, who flew from Ireland within hours of hearing about the accident, have been at his bedside.
"I was the only one home when we got the call and I was here 24 hours later," Keith says.
"We weren't sure if he was going to make it. When I first got here, his face was so swollen I had to check the tattoo on his arm to make sure it was him."
The brothers from Ballinameen, in Roscommon County, are overwhelmed by the kindness of Auckland's Irish community, as well as medical staff.
"The doctors, the nurses, the physios are just fantastic," says Kevin.
"They're never too busy to have a chat and a joke, which is what I need to stop myself going bloody stir-crazy in here."
Christmas has been tough because his parents had to fly home, but Kevin is getting ready for another skin graft.
National Burns Centre clinical leader Dr Richard Wong-She says Kevin's injuries were so severe, surgeons had no choice but to amputate.
"His burns were so deep."
Such burns could cause multiple organ failure or even death.
But medical advances in burn resuscitation, surgery and skin replacement mean Kevin could probably leave hospital for physical rehabilitation early next year.
Once his skin and nerve endings have healed sufficiently, he will be fitted with prosthetic limbs but isn't looking too far into the future.
When the former Gaelic footballer is well enough to leave hospital, he will return to Ireland to be with his family, but not before he can walk.
"I'm going to be walking home. I'm not going to be wheeled off the plane."
How you can help
A trust fund has been set up to help pay for Kevin's prosthetic legs. Cheques can be posted to the Kevin McGarry Trust Fund, C/- PO Box 12 443, Penrose, Auckland. Donations can be paid into the Kevin McGarry Trust Fund, Westpac Penrose, account number 03-0243-0239745-00. For more information, phone: (09) 622 3800.
