In December, a new video from New Zealand of a woman recounting her son’s traumatic brain injuries in the face of a medical exam revealed the unimaginable suffering that her son experienced.
In the clip, titled “It’s the last time you can see me, you know?” it was the voiceover of the examiner who asked her if her son had any mental health problems and what was wrong with him.
“He had a really bad case of depression,” she said.
“I was really shocked when he got home, I was really, really upset.
I didn’t know what to do.”
She said her son was diagnosed with a traumatic head injury and was taken to the Royal New Zealand Hospital in Auckland for treatment.
“I had a little bit of a breakdown because I was so upset.
My husband had to go and get me to go home,” she told Radio New Zealand.
“The whole time, my husband was crying, my kids were crying.
They were crying so hard.”
She told the BBC: “It was such a traumatic experience.
My son was really scared.
He couldn’t talk.
He was just scared and I didn´t know what was going to happen to him.”
On January 4, she was released and is now living in a care home.
“It’s been a really tough year for me,” she added.
She described her son as “kind, caring and loving” and said her husband had been trying to find a job and was now looking for work in a pharmacy.
But she said the emotional toll was “huge”.
“He would cry, he would cry with tears running down his face,” she explained.
“That was really hard.
It was really difficult for me.”