"She's very caring, she looks after me too much," he said.
He said he was focused on supporting his brother Luie, who was still recovering in hospital.
"I am still blessed ... my brother survived. I am still thankful," he told 1News.
The collision, which left the van completely destroyed, was the most deadly incident on New Zealand roads since April 2019 when eight people died in a head-on crash near Taupō.
The nine family members in the van had travelled to Dunedin from Auckland in a length-of-the-country road trip - in a Toyota Hiace van - to farewell Paul's aunt in Gore who had recently passed away.
They left Dunedin on Saturday afternoon and stayed overnight with a friend in Christchurch before continuing their journey home, leaving at 2.30am on Sunday so they could make their ferry crossing to the North Island.
Pedro's brother David hadn't gone on the trip because he had to work at the local Pak 'n Save supermarket in Pukekohe and also because he suffered from motion sickness.