Shane Thrower knows first-hand how quickly life can change.<\/p>\n
While training for his first New Zealand Ironman, he was hit from behind by a car travelling about 100km\/h, suffering a traumatic brain injury, multiple broken bones, two dislocated shoulders and paralysis down his right side.<\/p>\n
The crash left him in hospital for three months and facing a gruelling recovery.<\/p>\n
He had to learn to walk and talk again, while memory loss meant he would often forget visitors moments after they left. Friends and family began leaving messages in a notebook so he could remember who had been by his bedside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got hit, I was actually retraining as a high school teacher,\u201d Thrower said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d spent 10 years working as a cookery instructor at Christchurch Men\u2019s and Christchurch Women\u2019s prisons and after that I decided that I wanted to retrain as a high school teacher and stop people ending up in prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal was to work with youths.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thrower in hospital during his lengthy recovery. <\/p>\n
Thrower eventually became a teacher and began working at Linwood\u2019s Kimihia Adventure Programme \u2013 an alternative education initiative supporting at-risk young people not attending school regularly, through a collaborative network including families, agencies and the wider community.<\/p>\n
There, he met Aaron Webb and the pair became lifelong friends.<\/p>\n
Webb is now the team manager for the Crusaders but is still passionate about working with \u2013 and making a positive difference for \u2013 local youths. <\/p>\n
\u201cAaron rang me one day and said, \u2018I\u2019m looking at doing the New York Marathon with a group of guys, raising money for Te Tahi Youth, would you be interested?\u2019,\u201d Thrower explained.<\/p>\n
Thrower had to learn to walk again after his accident but has gone on to run ultra marathons and complete the Coast to Coast. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe knew that I love running \u2013 I run six or seven days a week, I\u2019ve done ultra marathons in New Zealand and overseas. And I love working with youth, so I was very excited about the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webb also recruited former All Black captain Kieran Reid and players Ryan Crotty and Colin Slade \u2013 also all former Crusaders. <\/p>\n
They must raise $10,000 each to achieve the lofty goal of $125,000 between them, to help Te Tahi Youth fit out new premises.<\/p>\n
To donate \u2013 click here.<\/a><\/p>\n Te Tahi Youth provides free health and wellbeing services for young people aged 10 to 24 across Christchurch. <\/p>\n The organisation operates as a one-stop shop, offering everything from medical, sexual and mental health care to counselling, youth development programmes and employment support.<\/p>\n The new hub will be based at Eastgate Mall.<\/p>\n Thrower and Webb hope their fundraising efforts will help create a welcoming, purpose-built space where young people can access vital support under one roof.<\/p>\n \u201cTe Tahi Youth approached me because I\u2019ve done a couple of other fundraising, longish runs and I was definitely keen to help out. And I get to do the New York Marathon as well, which is a bit of a bonus,\u201d Webb said. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd then I kind of was like, I don\u2019t really want to do it on my own, so I\u2019ll see if I can get a few other people on board as well. So it\u2019s kind of grown from there.\u201d<\/p>\n Webb said Thrower\u2019s story was \u201cso inspiring\u201d, and it made sense to invite him. <\/p>\n \u201cI found him to be one of the most positive people I\u2019d ever met in my life, and he\u2019s gone through a lot,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd then Kieran Read, who is my daughter\u2019s cricket coach, so I managed to con him into it; and Ryan Crotty, who I work with every day at the Crusaders, and Colin Slade.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of an all-star team and then me.\u201d<\/p>\n Webb said the central aim was to raise money for Te Tahi Youth.<\/p>\n \u201cSomewhere north of $100,000 would be great; if we could get up to $150,000, that would be even better \u2013 that\u2019s what they need to finish their project here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the other part of it is to help tell their story a little bit more in the community and raise their profile and partner with them, because they\u2019ve got lots of young men and women in the program that can benefit through connections and mentoring and those kind of things. <\/p>\n \u201cFor young people, it\u2019s such a challenging time in their lives presently, and these young people that Te Tahi work with are highly at risk so if we can be doing something in the community to help them grow, to help support them, to help them understand how to get out of the cycle that they might be in at present, I think that\u2019s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n Webb said Thrower was the perfect person for some of the youths to learn from. <\/p>\n \u201cNot only because of his injury, but he\u2019s also had some pretty serious illness \u2013 and he just comes out the other side, and he\u2019s so positive and so enthusiastic.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he shows young people that, no matter what your circumstances, you\u2019re in control of changing that; no one else can do it for you. They can help you and assist you on the way, but you have to take the lead, and I think that\u2019s where he really inspires a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n Read, one of the most-capped All Blacks of all time, said he was \u201chappy to be part\u201d of the marathon team.<\/p>\n \u201cShane\u2019s so inspiring,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a guy who\u2019s been through so much in the past and now you see him and he\u2019s full of life.\u201d<\/p>\n Read said training was going well and there was \u201ca good vibe\u201d in the group.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess the reality of having to go over and run a marathon is kind of sinking in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Thrower, who also helped found the Reefton Distilling Co, famed for its Little Biddy gin range, said he was keen to help youths whenever and wherever he could.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you work with youth and when you give them opportunities and you see the light turned on in them, that\u2019s what I love,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThem just realising that they can do this \u2013 and believing in themselves. <\/p>\n \u201cEven in our business and we employ students in the after-school to come and do labelling for us. I\u2019ve loved working with them and just seeing them grow into lovely young adults from the challenges that they\u2019ve had. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd because of my traumatic brain injury, I\u2019ve travelled similar roads to them with the challenges I\u2019ve been dealing with in life. Just giving them someone that they can lean on, because quite often they don\u2019t trust people; they\u2019re very, very wary because they\u2019ve been let down so many times. <\/p>\n \u201cSo it\u2019s just giving them a shoulder that they know that they can communicate with and someone that will believe in them; it\u2019s very important.\u201d<\/p>\n Thrower was excited to run the marathon, and also for the difference his efforts could make. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very important for youths in Christchurch to have this space. It\u2019s phenomenal, this building \u2026 and going forward as well, even after the marathon, just being able to still be involved would be just fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n Te Tahi Youth general manager Fiona Kay said the new hub was crucial \u2013 as was its location in East Christchurch. <\/p>\n \u201cWhich is an area where we\u2019ve got a large number of our young people based \u2013 about 40% actually who live in the eastern suburbs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo being based here at Eastgate Mall is just a fantastic opportunity. <\/p>\n \u201cObviously it\u2019s close in terms of transport and access, and there\u2019s lots of parking, lots of buses that come here. But there\u2019s also a degree of anonymity being in a mall \u2013 you could be coming to the mall for any reason \u2013 and we\u2019re upstairs and sort of out of the way a little bit, so it\u2019s discreet and private. <\/p>\n \u201cThis space specifically will have four clinical consultation rooms so that our doctors and nurses can see young people, as well as a couple of other rooms for things like counselling and time with the social worker.<\/p>\n \u201cI like to think of what we do here is, we\u2019ve got an amazing team of staff who work with our young people and support them and walk alongside them to help them be the best version of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Kay said just over $500,000 had been secured to kit the space out. <\/p>\n \u201cThe runners have got the task of finding the remaining amount that we need to complete \u2013 no pressure boys,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut what we\u2019re really excited about is the profile that they have, and that they can bring to us as an organisation, and the amazing work that the staff do; and the other one as well is to have an ongoing relationship with them and opportunities that can come from them. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of young people who obviously love sports, love the Crusaders \u2013 but the experience that they\u2019ve got from their previous roles as well and what they can bring to the young people is the bit we\u2019re also really excited about.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what they\u2019re doing is an awesome thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2026 TCS New York City Marathon is on November 1, 2026. <\/p>\n It marks the 50th anniversary of the iconic event and drew a record-breaking more than 240,000 applicants. Only about 1% of people were accepted. <\/p>\n Event organisers expect more than 55,000 people to participate on the day, with more than two million spectators across the city\u2019s five boroughs. <\/p>\n To donate to Thrower\u2019s team effort \u2013 click here.<\/a><\/p>\n Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers Christchurch issues and national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for more than 20 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence and homicides. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane Thrower knows first-hand how quickly life can change. While training for his first New Zealand Ironman, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[145404,282066,74,5263,29452,8136,21048,3549,8809,2740,71,410,2241,78,6371,102150,33031,3234,65795,117,111,139,69,2515,282068,55401,7228,213,14484,11230,282067,61,17249,4770,2173],"class_list":["post-572314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-100kmh","tag-282066","tag-after","tag-all","tag-basics","tag-blacks","tag-couldnt","tag-crash","tag-cycling","tag-former","tag-from","tag-horror","tag-hospital","tag-in","tag-joins","tag-lifes","tag-marathon","tag-months","tag-nearfatal","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-raise","tag-relearn","tag-remember","tag-shane","tag-sports","tag-survivor","tag-talking","tag-thrower","tag-to","tag-visited","tag-walking","tag-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572314","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=572314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Aaron Webb and Shane Thrower have been mates for more than 20 years. Photo \/ Anna Heath<\/p>\n
Former All Blacks and Crusaders stars Keiran Read, Ryan Crotty and Colin Slade will join Thrower and Webby at the New York Marathon. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n
The car after hitting Shane Thrower while he was on a training ride. <\/p>\n
Reefton Distillery Company founders Patsy Bass and Shane Thrower. Photo \/ NZ Herald<\/p>\n
Thrower is determined to do everything he can to inspire and help youths face their own challenges. <\/p>\n
More than 55,000 people will run in this year’s New York Marathon. Photo \/ 123RF<\/p>\n