KEY POINTS:
Trainee pilot Nick Eagleson's body is so shattered from the waist down he hasn't dared count the number of broken bones doctors have identified.
For the 33-year-old North Shore town planner, who remembers little of his terror dive into a southern mountain range, it will be a long haul back to health.
That journey begins this weekend with his transfer from Christchurch Hospital to the Burwood Spinal Unit.
After surviving the August 26 light plane crash into the Gammack Range, 19km southeast of Mt Cook, Eagleson was confined to Christchurch Hospital's Ward 19 "going completely mad sitting in the same room and not being able to stand on my own two feet".
His list of injuries reads like a lower body anatomy lesson - "I've got multiple fractures starting with my pelvis and moving on down".
The tally includes both ankles fractured in "a very unusual manner", requiring four screws in each to meld together shattered bone fragments, a left tibia reconstructed with surgical steel, and chipped discs which were impinging on his spinal column and needed realigning with screws.
Eagleson has endured three major surgeries in three weeks but is feeling "as perky as can be expected" as he confronts four to six months of rehabilitation before he can even think about flying home.
His move to Burwood will be brightened by the presence of Auckland girlfriend and nurse Karen Forsyth, who has moved south and will live at the rehabilitation centre to help speed his recovery.
Eagleson is looking forward to getting on with his life. "It's been a pretty traumatic few weeks and I can't wait to move on. It's a bit early to tell about how the recovery will go. It seems like I've been on my back forever, but I have feeling in both of my legs and everything seems to be pointing in the right direction - towards getting total movement back."
Eagleson was at the controls of a two-seater Robin 2120 aircraft when a down draft is believed to have hurled it into the mountainside.
North Shore Aero Club flight instructor Richard Bateman, 27, crawled from the wrecked plane with a badly gashed scalp and freed his student from the crushed fuselage.
Bateman, bleeding heavily, taped a chunk of his scalp back on before taking two hours to trek 8km down a steep valley to raise the alarm.
He spent three days in Timaru Hospital before flying home to convalesce with his parents in Glenfield. His injuries include a double break in his left arm and multiple bruising. He also has 45 staples in his head.
The unassuming hero says the crash hasnt dented his love of flying. He hopes to get back to aero club duties as soon as his injuries heal and he gets medical clearance.
Further down the track, he plans to do a Mission Aviation fellowship, flying with a Christian organisation doing aid work in Third World countries.
In the interim he is keen to get his plaster cast off so he can get back to practising his bagpipes and take his usual place in the Auckland and district pipe band.
Civil Aviation Authority investigators have inspected the remains of the French-built plane, Bateman has been interviewed, and Eagleson will be spoken to once his condition stabilises. CAA expects to release its findings by mid-November.
