Jill Ranuve on son Nemani’s ‘miracle’ recovery from coma

Six months after Nemani Ranuve was hit by a motorbike and almost killed while walking home in the early hours of the morning, he has left hospital. To his family, he is a walking, talking miracle.

Tin Can Bay’s Nemani Renuve had one thing on his mind when he finally left the Royal Brisbane Hospital six months after being admitted with critical injuries from a hit and run: a Big Mac.

The 20-year-old was walking home with friends in December 2022 along Excelsior Road, near Gympie’s biggest shopping centre, when he was hit by a motorbike shortly before 3am.

He was in a coma for more than a month, with severe injuries to his head, jaw and leg.

Doctors were forced to perform major brain surgery, and Nemani suffered a number of mini strokes.

He woke up in late January, but was paralysed down his left side and unable to talk.

Five months later he is talking, and walking with assistance, and he made it clear on the day he was finally allowed to go home, on June 23, 2023, what the first port of call should be.

“We didn’t even get out of Brisbane before we stopped at McDonald’s,” Nemani’s mum Jill said.

Nemani Ranuve said “there’s no place like home” now that he was finally released from hospital six months after he was severely injured and left in a coma when a motorbike struck him near Gympie Central Shopping Centre, on December 18, 2022.

Jill described her son’s recovery and discharge from the Royal Brisbane as “nothing short of a miracle”.

“He is my hero,” she said.

There were times following the crash Nemani’s family feared he would never recover, and even after he woke there was talk of him needing to be placed into a care home.

Jill said the current prognosis was he would never regain sight in his right eye, and Nemani will have to travel to the Sunshine Coast four times a week for the next six weeks, for six hours of rehab each day.

Nemani Ranuve with his friends at his homecoming at Tin Can Bay on Friday June 23, 2023.

But he has big plans too.

His desire to go fishing again was “very achievable”, she said, as was swimming at the beach.

Jill said he wanted to drive again, which “might be a battle” given the long term effects of his injuries.

What he wanted most was more independence.

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Jill was grateful she no longer needed to make the two-hour drive to be with her son.

“I don’t miss that,” she said.

“I woke up on Saturday morning and thought ‘I don’t need to go to Brisbane’.”

Nemani had his own views on how it felt to finally be free of the hospital

“There’s no place like home,” he said.