Lonely and sad torment for couple torn apart by quake

Bill McDaniel at his home in Christchurch while his wife Paula is stuck indefinitely at a rest home in Auckland. Photo / Simon Baker

A wheelchair-bound Christchurch pensioner returns every day to an east Auckland pub to sit alone, having been relocated 700km from her husband in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Crippled by a long-term illness, Paula McDaniel can barely form words or push her wheelchair to the toilet, but she has carried on the routine that began when her 78-year-old husband was able to make a brief visit.

It could be six months before they can be together again, and Bill McDaniel breaks down in tears when he thinks of her on her own.

"I'm trying to get Paula back because she's in a bad state. They've pushed her into a world she shouldn't be in," Mr McDaniel said from his broken home in Christchurch.

"I just want to get her back here as soon as possible."

In Christchurch, Mrs McDaniel lived in a resthome. But it was damaged in the February 22 disaster and she was taken by ambulance in a convoy to the airport for a flight out.

"All at once they took her and wouldn't tell us where she was going, so I followed the convoy..." Mr McDaniel said before his voice trailed off. For three days, he could not find out where his wife had gone.

When Mrs McDaniel finally called, she was at the Ambridge Rose Manor in Pakuranga, Auckland. Mr McDaniel followed after his wife, finding temporary lodgings at a resthome nearby.

The couple would meet every day at Ye Olde Bailey in Pakuranga - the husband sitting with a pint and the wife a cup of tea. Sometimes she would have a go at the pokies.

They would get a taxi to take them there and back, spending most of their afternoons together at the pub.

Mr McDaniel's visit lasted only three weeks, however. He had to take care of business on his damaged house in Christchurch.

Pub manager Leroy Thompson said when Mr McDaniel walked into the bar on his last day, he "looked like he had been to a funeral. He was on the verge of crying. He really was."

Now, Mrs McDaniel sits alone.

The Herald visited Ye Olde Bailey this week to find Mrs McDaniel trying to pass the time.

"I know nobody," she struggled to say. "Oh my God."

At her resthome, Mrs McDaniel has been put in a ward with dementia patients because she needs special medical attention, but this has made her isolation worse.

"That's the sad thing about it. Her brain is quite sharp," Mr McDaniel said. "Paula is the kind of person who would talk to people, but she tries and people just walk away. They think she's an imbecile.

"She's trapped in a body, and it can only get worse. There's no cure for what she's got," Mr McDaniel said.

He knows that transferring her back to Christchurch would be difficult - medical facilities required to care for her condition are not expected to be back up and running for at least six months - but said he would not stop trying.

"So many patients have been shipped out of Christchurch and it's hard to get them back," he said.

"I can understand that. She needs 24-hour day care. You can't put her in an ordinary home."

Daughter Marjolein Reynolds, who lives in New Plymouth, visited her mother at the weekend. She said her parents were brilliant together.

"They've been together close to 20 years. It's devastating. Before mum's illness, they used to go dancing every Saturday. They were amazing," Ms Reynolds said.

It had been difficult to see her mother so lonely, she said. "It was bloody hard, to be honest."