KEY POINTS:
The doctors were ready to turn off Samantha Garner's life support machine, but no one counted on her fighting spirit.
The 14-year-old's lungs - critically injured in a road crash that had already claimed her brother Josh - were starting to set like concrete, said the doctors. There was little more they could do.
Samantha's mother, Raewyn, and father Craig were set to turn off the teenager's life support machine in Auckland's Starship hospital at 10.30am last Monday.
"I rang everyone in the family - all the brothers and sisters and we waited for the doctor... and waited... and waited, and by that time we'd all come to terms with what we had to do," said Raewyn.
But, then, a flicker of hope. The Tauranga Girls' College student - her mum describes her as a fighter, "very stubborn" - wasn't ready to succumb. According to a final medical assessment, her lungs had shown improvement, more capacity for air. The specialist wasn't ready to turn off the machine - she was on the brink, but was battling back.
Samantha, who has steadily improved during the week, is nowhere near out of the danger zone.
The list of her injuries is horrendous - a broken neck, brain injuries, the two collapsed lungs, a broken jaw, torn spleen, and a facial cut. She remains in a coma.
Raewyn, who buried 24-year-old Josh last week, is now with Samantha around the clock. She sleeps next to her bedside at Starship. She massages her, comforts her, kisses her tenderly.
"We don't know if she can hear," says Raewyn. "We haven't told her about Joshua but she may have heard from other people who have visited.
"We talk to Samantha about Josh. When I went home last Saturday, I said, 'I'm going home to see Josh, but I won't say why'."
Joshua was driving the car when he lost control exiting a roundabout between Maungatapu and Welcome Bay, in Tauranga, two weeks ago. It skidded off the road, into a power pole. Joshua died instantly while Samantha's friend Kayla Rose, 14, in the back seat, later died in hospital.
Police believe speed played a part in the crash. Raewyn also said the road was wet: "They [police] have done tests but nothing has come back from them.
"To hear that Josh was dead was so hard but I was just so amazed that Samantha didn't die instantly, because she had broken her neck right where the head sits, which was split right across, and the spinal cord was directly joined to that. When you have that injury it can just snap. It was some miracle she survived - but she has been fighting since day one."
Mother and daughter have always been close. Samantha, said Raewyn, has a "huge personality - very bubbly, very loving, always there".
"Even when I'm going through bad times she's the one who always makes sure that I eat. She talks to me, like when we are in the car.
"We talk to each other about everything - like boys, what her and her friends are up to."
Joshua and Samantha have five other siblings.
Samantha's little sister Paige, 12, whispered into her ear: "Hurry up. You're my only sister at home so we need some bonding time."
Raewyn said: "It's going to take months for her to get better... well, more like years. She'll be at Starship for two or three months. I'm hoping she'll make it back to Tauranga Hospital for Christmas but we just have to take it day by day.
"I have started building a house and I don't know how I'm going to finish it. That's my dream - I want Samantha to come home.
"I just picked up the curtains and her duvet last week. That's my goal - I just want that room set up for her when she comes home."
Raewyn said she would have been heartbroken if the life support had been turned off.
"I would just have been too busy crying but I knew that Josh would be there to look after her. If Josh was here, he'd help pull her through."
