{"id":261535,"date":"2026-01-31T21:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T21:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/261535\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T21:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T21:24:07","slug":"kiwi-rugby-player-joseph-peanut-ritchie-walks-out-of-hospital-after-serious-spinal-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/261535\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiwi rugby player Joseph \u2018Peanut\u2019 Ritchie walks out of hospital after serious spinal injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to being at home, being with my 4 and 5-year-old sons, and then spending time with my older step-kids,\u201d Ritchie told the West Australian.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThere have been weekends where I got to go home and every week has just got harder and harder to come back to hospital. I\u2019m finally there, so I can\u2019t wait to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">While he has been discharged from hospital, there is still a long road for full recovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe are delighted to share that Peanut has been discharged from hospital,\u201d Nedlands Rugby Club said on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThe grit and determination he has shown is truly inspiring and we are behind him as he continues his rehabilitation as an outpatient.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">Ritchie\u2019s parents were there for the occasion in what was an emotional moment, and his dad, David, felt he would eventually walk again one day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThe prognosis was touch-and-go, but he always told me when he first started talking, \u2018I\u2019m going to walk out of here Dad\u2019,\u201d David Ritchie told the West Australian.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI believed him as he\u2019s always had a stubborn, strong-willed personality. It\u2019s just going to be good to see him back with his kids. He mostly misses his boys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">Ritchie was a former student at St Patrick\u2019s Silverstream College and played rugby for Upper Hutt Rams before relocating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\">A Givealittle page was set up after the injury and raised over $40,000 with donations from both New Zealand and Australia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vwaNpWtPaxhXkxNi\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/author\/ben-francis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/author\/ben-francis\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Francis<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to being at home, being with my 4 and 5-year-old sons, and then spending time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,6030,13994,26885,5269,2241,15258,53733,194,4188,19874,3234,13631,111,139,69,1118,3111,297,72,9617,44298,6327,1238,202,41114,23747,213,34890,55857,28561],"class_list":["post-261535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-again","tag-feared","tag-fractured","tag-game","tag-hospital","tag-injury","tag-joseph","tag-kiwi","tag-living","tag-miraculously","tag-months","tag-never","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-out","tag-peanut","tag-perth","tag-player","tag-ritchie","tag-rugby","tag-serious","tag-seven","tag-spinal","tag-spine","tag-sports","tag-walk","tag-walked","tag-walks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}