Shot student wants to help NZ hospital

An English student who was shot in New Zealand while hunting rabbits will attempt a sponsored walk this weekend to raise money for the hospital that saved his life.

Matthew Purchase, 23, will try to cover 500m in aid of Waikato Hospital, where he was treated in intensive care for horrific injuries after the incident in December 2007.

He said he had been practising over the past few months at his home in Dorset, southern England, despite being told by doctors that he would not be able walk again.

"I am doing it because I want to raise money for the hospital in New Zealand," he told the BBC.

"Without their help I would have never made the recovery I have been able to.

"I should be dead, but I've been given a second chance. The least I can do is raise some money for them to say thank you."

The Danish tourist who accidentally shot Mr Purchase, Bjarne Jensen, was cleared by a High Court jury in Rotorua last November of careless use of a firearm.

Mr Purchase, who was in New Zealand in his "gap year" after graduating with an agricultural degree, was shot in the head while the pair were out hunting at Waotu, near Putaruru.

The bullet from a .22 calibre rifle shattered his skull and destroyed the right side of his brain, narrowly missing the brain stem.

The bullet was removed by a surgeon at Waikato Hospital.

The shooting left Mr Purchase permanently disabled and with no vision in one eye and just partial sight in the other.

- NZPA