Billy Ross is the epitome of a young adventurous rangatahi living life to the fullest. His and his whānau’s sheer determination in the face of severe brain injuries has been rewarded with the most precious gift – Billy returning to the things he loves most.
Billy has generously shared his story with ABI to encourage kiritaki, whānau and kaimahi to keep going, as against all odds, you can recover from brain injuries and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Billy’s story
After the Christchurch earthquake in 2011, my whānau and I moved out of the city to a rural property on the Banks Peninsula. My life before my accident was very active and I had sustained a previous brain injury at 14 after a mountain bike accident. That injury meant I needed to be airlifted by the rescue helicopter for surgery and gave our whānau a massive insight into brain injuries and the rehabilitation process. It took 18 months to recover from that injury but at the beginning of 2024, I was feeling ‘normal’ again and was able to get back to the things I loved. After finishing high school, I had spent a month trekking and climbing the Himalayas in Nepal, as well as volunteering in villages.
I was 17, the world was my oyster.
The night of 30 April 2024 changed all that. It was the second day of studying mechanical engineering at Polytechnic and after class, a group of friends and I decided to go hunting just north of Christchurch. We had a great evening and were heading back home, with my friend driving. I was a passenger in the front with two other friends in the back.
It’s easy for some people to see young men driving and assume we were being reckless in some way. We weren’t speeding, we weren’t drinking – the driver just lost attention for the briefest of moments.
I remember nothing else of that night or the next six weeks.
I found out afterwards that my friend tried to correct when he noticed he’d gone slightly off the road, but as he turned the steering wheel it veered the car sideways into a power pole. The front passenger side took full impact as the car flipped twice, eventually coming to rest, upside down.
I was crushed and upside down, trapped by my seatbelt (which kept me alive) and the wreckage of the car. My two friends in the back were knocked out and after they came to, they managed to pull the driver out who was still unconscious. But I was stuck. It took over two hours to get me out of the wreckage to Christchurch Hospital. My mum is an ambulance medic and it was her friends that attended the accident. They rang my parents and told them the news, and they needed to come to the hospital urgently. I still remember none of this. I was placed on life support, moved to the Intensive Care Unit and had surgery on my legs, hips and pelvis the next day.
My whānau was told I was in a critical condition and may not make it out of surgery.
I spent the first week on life support in the Intensive Care Unit and then moved to the Orthopaedic Trauma Unit at Christchurch Hospital. At first, the focus was all on my orthopaedic and chest injuries, despite scans showing I had sustained a traumatic brain injury too, my invisible injury.
My whānau and friends were very worried as I was not myself – I was aggressive and combative. My parents pushed for further investigation – they wouldn’t accept this was just normal behaviour to be expected from a 17 year old boy. Finally, an MRI revealed I had a significant traumatic brain injury, alongside my other injuries.
I’d survived but it was pretty grim.
My whānau were told extensive rehabilitation was going to be needed to make any progress. The likelihood of me being able to walk again was low and my cognitive abilities would be challenged because of the severity and complexity of my injuries. My parents were devastated. They didn’t think there was anything wrong with me apart from my broken bones – it’s so difficult to feel or see brain injuries.
ABI Rehabilitation was recommended, and we were relieved to know there was a facility that was dedicated to brain injury rehabilitation. Having to move to Wellington was difficult but we were determined to have access to the best care to ensure I could have every opportunity to reach my full potential. Whatever that was to be.
I was airlifted to ABI Wellington by LifeFlight 27 days after my accident. I still don’t remember my first week there. My parents said we were all overwhelmed. But within two hours of arriving, my incredible physio Chris had me up and sitting in a wheelchair for the first time. All the staff were so welcoming. But I hated it.
I hated them all. I hated the other patients. I hated my whānau. I hated my friends. I hated my room, my wheelchair, my rehab sessions, the food – everything. But most of all, I hated my body, and I hated my life. I was mean and angry, and I let everyone know.
Instead of the staff seeing this as a problem they knew the solution. My incredible team arranged for me to be moved into a more teenage friendly space at the facility. I had a bigger room and a little area that could be closed off when my noisy mates visited. We were encouraged to use the OT rooms to play pool and games and could share meals and takeaways together. Every single weekday morning Jo would take me out to reconnect with the world, I got to put my feet in the ocean.
The hard road
The rehab was hard. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to talk to my therapists. I was gutted every time the pool was closed. I hated having to go out in a wheelchair. But the rehab started to pay off and I was able to move to using crutches. This was a game changer: I loved going to the gym, the team challenged me, and I challenged them back. We planked and had competitions. I loved cooking with the OT’s. I loved going shopping with my whānau and going into the city, even if it was in the wheelchair. I hated being told I needed to rest – I hated knowing my brain was still injured and hated being “tested” to see how I was progressing. I hated that my Mum made me get up every day – and that even during the weekends and quite times she pushed me. We went to the local pools, we played so many memory card games, everyone played sticky balls, we went shopping and she made me make lists, we visited museums, we went axe throwing and to smash rooms, we went to Weta, the beaches, out for meals – we started doing everything that “normal” people did and then it hit me – I was going to be ok – I was making progress. All this work had paid off – I still couldn’t walk but my brain was healing, and I was learning new ways of doing old things. I had stopped hating it at ABI.I even stopped swearing so much. I had stopped hating being alive and started looking forward. I started to remember who I was, where I came from and where I was going.
Light at the end of the tunnel
I was discharged from ABI 104 days after my accident – a total of four months as an inpatient! I was transferred to extensive community rehab at home in Christchurch and was determined to keep progressing. Two weeks after returning home, my orthopaedic surgeon told me to try and walk. And I did – kind of! Eight weeks later, I was walking unaided and returned my wheelchair to ACC. I enrolled in a night class with my Dad and successfully completed a welding course.
7 months on
Seven months on from my accident, I was signed off to drive again which was a huge accomplishment. Cars and driving were my passion before my accident and I was wild when I was told my licence had been taken off me because I had a brain injury.
Once I could drive again, I re-enrolled in my mechanical engineering course in 2025, and with the support of my rehab team and student supports, I am passing my course and have secured part-time work in at a mechanics with the aim of an apprenticeship at the end of the course. I passed my full drivers’ licence and received clearance from my medicals teams to do what seemed like an impossibility a year earlier: I returned to the mountain – not quite Mt Everest this time but I skied again. A massive day on the snow, on off course tracks – doing what I loved. It hurt the next day, but it always hurt the next day.
Looking forward to the next chapter
I’m now 18 and the world is my oyster. I am more confident than the pre-accident Billy (can thank my frontal lobe injury for that), I’m fitter, I still attend gym sessions twice a week, I do stop and think before I jump a little more now, I still hate that I get tired so easily, but I’ve also learnt it’s easy enough to manage. My girlfriend stuck around and so did all my mates despite my swearing and lack of tolerance towards them.
If you’ve just had a brain injury my advice would be this: it’s ok to feel terrible, it is terrible that this is happening to you – but don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t or won’t be able to do something. There is more than one road to get to most destinations. No matter how much you don’t want to do the sessions – do them anyway. Your brain is playing tricks on you. Rehab works. The impossible is really just ‘I’m Possible’.
Reconnecting with who I was
One of the things that upset me the most with my head injury was I lost my ability to remember my mihi. I had forgotten how to tell people where I was from, and who I was – but I hadn’t forgotten who I was – just how to explain – I could still feel who I was. Jo helped me find my missing words – my whakapapa was never lost; it was still in my jumbled up brain and just needed to be rearranged with all the mess in there after the accident.
Ko Aoraki tōku Maunga
Ko Waitaki tōku Awa
Ko Takitimu tōku Waka
Ko Kai Tahu ratou Waitaha ko Kati Momoe ko Te Atiawa ki Taranaki oku Iwi
Ko Huirapa tōku Hapu
Ko Moeraki tōku marae
No Motukarara ahau
Ko Anaru tāku Papa
Ko Nikki tāku Mama
Ko Billy Ross tōku ingoa.
Noreira, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.
Jo Young, ABI Kaiārahi Kaupapa Māori reflects on her connection with Billy:
“This poem depicts my time with Billy. We went out into nature each day to ignite the wairua two waters that flow through him. It was here that my awhi and aroha grew with Billy, and I now call him whānau. Even though a rangatahi, I saw him as a whole person on a journey to flourish and thrive”.
