He looks perfect in every other respect. Long, lean, a shock of auburn hair, more smile than one face needs and cheeky as hell.

So I'm willing Elliott Keys to burst free of the beast so this perfectly likeable young larrikin can resume his reckless assault on life.

Elliott before the accident (left), and with his support team – brothers Matheson and Ollie and Mum and Dad. Photo: Bruce Barnard.

The ‘beast' in question is a big black chariot dripping with gadgetry – Elliott drives it with head movements because life for Elliott is only above the shoulders.

'I was taking risks and s*** happens,” he says.

His current prognosis is quadriplegic with a one-to-five per cent chance of regaining movement past those youthful shoulders. Not great odds.

By rights those shoulders and arms should be powering a kayak, heaving weights, snow-boarding, skiing or kitesurfing. All of the things Elliott Keys loves.

'Except school – that's boring,” adds the 15-year-old.

And although she'd never say it, mother Tracy Keys would give away a Lotto first division to be cuddled by those big shoulders and arms. But that won't happen.

Elliott has one regret, just one. 'I should have leaned back instead of forward.”

Doesn't seem a biggie but it changed his life forever. There's a lot of ‘forever' in Elliott's life now - all of it painful. He'll forever need care. He'll forever be immobile. He'll forever be dependent.

'I can't take it back, I can't change things,” he says.

But if he'd leaned back his mountain bike would have landed on the rear wheel, not the front. He wouldn't have gone over the handle bars, and been propelled head-first into a life of quadriplegia.

It was Monday, July 7, 2014, and Elliott was soaring around the mountain bike tracks at Oropi Forest south of Tauranga. Thrills go hand-in-hand with risk and Elliott admits he loves risk.

'I was going too fast, tried to do too much, mistimed a jump.” A jump he'd successfully executed a hundred times before. 'But this time I got the landing wrong.”

It's a story delivered with youthful bravado.

'I know when something bad's about to happen, and I had that feeling. Something was definitely not right.” He's laughing again.

'I thought I'd broken my collarbone but then I thought ‘I can't move, I can't move'; something's bad.”

It was grim alright. And later the same day doctors gathered at his hospital bed.

'They said you have pretty much broken your neck and most likely you will never walk again.”

His response? 'Oh s***, really?” Given the gravity of the news, the expletive was probably appropriate and forgivable.

'I said: ‘But I can't move my arms?' They said: ‘That's right!' I said: ‘Oh s***' again.”

Elliott's had 10 months of hospital time to process the accident, the outcome and the prognosis. 'Well, I wish I hadn't done it,” he says, 'I wish I had done more to minimise the damage. But I'm not sad.”

You want to feel bad for Elliott but he won't let you. Because while I'm contemplating shattered C4s – Elliott's pondering how to get a gun mounted on the beast. Yes, a gun.

His father found out when he got a $1900 quote from a New York gunsmith. Should ‘larrikins' be allowed Uzis on their wheelchairs? 'I was thinking more anti-aircraft,” he jokes.

While I deal with the notion of a young broken body, shattered dreams and wasted potential, this irrepressible kid is thinking hunting expeditions. He wants to do some killing.

'And I still want to be a marine biologist,” he admits. But he doesn't want to be a marine biologist in a wheelchair in an office pawing over spreadsheets. He wants the action.

He cusses like a wharfie. 'Life is s***” and 's*** happens.” Unlike his C4 his attitude hasn't been damaged.

Then he threatens to 'hospitalise” an irritating younger brother – and 'hospitalise” his mother because she tells me how she has to change his boxers for him.

This is the same mother Elliott supposes he's 'quite close to” – a teenage boys affirmation of love and respect.

After all this is the same mother who feeds him chips one by one, scratches his nose, bathes him, cleans his teeth, throws a blanket over when he gets cold in the night and monitors blood pressure. Then does it all again the very next day…forever.

Then Elliott 'creeps me”. He's lying back on a gurney and I notice his leg moving. It moves again.

I want to believe this is a hallelujah moment, that I'm about to witness the miracle of this kid climbing from his bed and that the world will be alright. But the joke is on me.

'It's just a spasm – happens all the time,” he laughs. For a few moments the paralysed puppeteer had me on a string. He enjoyed the sport.

Elliott's home now after three months in Tauranga Hospital and six months in the Burwood Spinal Unit. It's 'good” to be home and people have been 'good” to Elliott.

Like the good women of Tokoroa, where his Dad runs a chemist business. They got together and fashioned Elliott a patchwork quilt. It's beautiful - like Elliott's hands.

He has beautiful hands for a man – flawless with the long fingers of a pianist or a painter and manicured nails. They now sit cradled on the armrest of the beast, defunct.

And there are plans to get this outdoors kid who's confined indoors to get back outdoors. He's getting a $40,000 all-terrain ‘beast' – a kind of quad bike he can drive with his nut.

It'll allow him get out in the sun and fresh air and enjoy the beach, trails and forests again. Then Elliott can get that gun mounted.

To help Elliott there's a Give a Little page. Visit: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/elliottkeys#