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It was a frantic knock at the front door of his North Shore home that led to pensioner Taufui Paea grappling with a murderous knifeman half his age.
Mr Paea's neighbour Sheryl Pareanga had been chased there by an ex-partner who had already stabbed her several times in the back.
Mr Paea came into the hallway to find the knifeman straddling Ms Pareanga and furiously stabbing her with knives in both hands.
Selflessly, Mr Paea tackled the man, wrapping both arms around his torso, trying to pull him off Ms Pareanga.
"I'm an old man. He was very strong," Mr Paea, 70, told the Weekend Herald. "I couldn't do anything."
The knifeman threw him off, stabbed him in the face, and just missed with another swipe aimed at his chest.
With Ms Pareanga appearing dead, and fearing for his wife and two grandchildren who were hiding in the house, Mr Paea escaped the knifeman to get another neighbour to call 111.
He came back to a high side window and helped his wife Toeumu lower the grandchildren to safety.
He again returned to the front door - the only way in and out of the home - and met with the offender, who saw him and ran away.
Mr Paea found his wife safe, but Ms Pareanga dead having received over 30 stab wounds.
Mr Paea was hospitalised and required stitches in the puncture wound in his cheek during the December 2004 attack. The knifeman is serving a life sentence.
For his actions, the Queen has awarded Mr Paea with the New Zealand Bravery Star - second only to the New Zealand Cross - saying he displayed "bravery, presence of mind and determination".
A teacher in his homeland of Tonga, Mr Paea - a grandfather of 22 - retired after a bout of throat cancer and said the attack was his only encounter with violence.
He knew Ms Pareanga well, as she would always try to pay him for his neighbourly gesture of mowing her lawns for free while she was out - which he always declined.
He remains haunted by memories of the attack, recalling how the man said "I love you, I love you" as he stabbed Ms Paeranga's lifeless body.
Mr Paea realised what he'd done when a neighbour held him after the attack and said: "You are so brave."
Mr Paea said he was proud to be recognised by the Queen.
"I am very happy. I thought they had made a mistake - I didn't think they would give it to someone so old."
