KIWI MUM'S MEDICAL CRISIS 'IT'S A MIRACLE I SURVIVED!'

Rangi-Arahina believes traditional healing helped her recovery from a brain aneurysm.

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Rangi-Arahina Renee Daniels had just finished delivering a speech about kotahitanga, the power of community, in a work meeting last year, when she suddenly felt excruciating pain in her head. Collapsing, the Wellington mum of five suffered a seizure in front of her colleagues, including a doctor, who frantically phoned for an ambulance.

Terrifyingly, a small brain aneurysm Rangi-Arahina was diagnosed with seven months prior had ruptured, leaving her on the brink of death.

"I don't remember doing a speech," says Rangi-Arahina, 44. "I recall sitting down afterwards and having the most intense pain come into my head out of nowhere. It was sudden and felt like someone hit me with a bat, then lights out and I dropped."

Miraculously, since being rushed to Wellington Hospital on 25 July 2024, Waikato-raised Rangi-Arahina, who's the pou ārahi (cultural leader) for Wellington depression recovery centre Whakamātūtū i te rau Kōmingomingo, has made a full recovery - despite undergoing two dangerous, invasive brain operations and being in an induced coma for a month.

"I remember waking for a couple of seconds in hospital, disoriented and seeing my colleagues crying," shares Rangi-Arahina, whose children, aged between 25 and 14, were in Auckland and Waikato.