A Whangarei mother whose teenage son was almost disembowelled during a weekend stabbing is grateful she was at the hospital with him yesterday and not his funeral.
The teenager had an operation at 2am yesterday and was in a stable condition.
The woman said, thankfully, the knife used in the attack on her 17-year-old son at Kendon Place in the early hours of Saturday missed his vital organs.
The incident was the first of two near-fatal stabbings in Northland within a day.
Her son was drinking at a house with his NorthTec classmates when a group of teenagers allegedly started hurling abuse at them from the road.
The homeowner went out to see what was going on, accompanied by her son and his friends, when the attack happened.
Luckily, St John paramedics were dealing with an unrelated matter just up the road and quickly attended to the injured teenager.
"It could have been worse. I could have been at his funeral," the victim's mother told the Northern Advocate yesterday.
She said her son recently secured a part-time job in the construction industry but may not be able to work now because of his injuries.
He would also be unable to complete a course in hospitality and tourism at NorthTec that finishes soon.
Kendon Place was in lockdown for at least 12 hours early Saturday as police scoured neighbouring properties for the knife used in the attack.
Brenda Cork, who lives at the house where her son was drinking with his friends, including the victim, is angry the attacker nearly killed the young man. She denied police reports that she hosted a party and, when a partygoer was denied entry, he had attacked the teen.
Her son and his friends were drinking to celebrate a course her son had undertaken at NorthTec, when they heard three boys abusing them, she said.
Her family has had no dealings with the alleged attacker.
A Kendon Place resident said he and his partner heard lots of noises on the road around midnight on Friday and later saw partygoers chasing a man who was believed to have stabbed someone.
And in Kaeo on Saturday, another man was flown to the Whangarei Hospital with a suspected punctured lung after he was stabbed in the back and hands about 5.30pm. A supermarket worker administered first aid to the man before emergency services arrived.
The Four Square employee, who preferred to be known only as Mary, said a domestic dispute culminated in the stabbing, just across the road from where she worked.
"[The victim] came running inside [the supermarket] with a friend and said he'd been stabbed and had a punctured lung," she said.
"He was in shock.
"I called the emergency services and, with the other hand, put a cloth on the worst affected area. He had four to five puncture wounds."
A 19-year-old man appeared in the Whangarei District Court on Saturday, charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm in relation to the Kendon Place incident.
His bail was opposed and he was remanded in custody.
- Imran Ali of The Northern Advocate
