Alex Cottier (21), of Arrowtown, was at the national rugby sevens tournament in Queenstown in January with his mates when he vomited and collapsed. He and his mother, Vanessa, want to know why the hospital "got it wrong", want a review of the hospital process and an assurance changes will be made.
"I want them to acknowledge they stuffed up. I want them to learn from their mistakes," Mrs Cottier said yesterday.
Mr Cottier's illness was caused not by the four standard beers he had drunk that afternoon but by a rare and potentially fatal brain bleed - an arteriovenous malformation.
It took more than 40 minutes to get him to hospital in Frankton after medical staff at the tournament allegedly assumed he was very drunk.
The mother and son say the medical process had been drawn out further by four hospital staff who also assumed his state was alcohol-related.
"I lay in Queenstown Hospital with all of them thinking I was drunk, until about 3pm the next day."
Only when hospital staff were approached by a nurse who had seen the incident the day before did they concede it was more than just a hangover, and he was sent to Invercargill hospital for a CT scan of his head.
Mr Cottier remained in a high dependency unit for a further two weeks after the operation and is now awaiting radiation therapy.
He has what can be compared with a scab on the brain, which if knocked will start severe and possibly lethal bleeding again.
"I'm a bit annoyed. At the end of the day doctors are doctors and they can't just say 'he's a drunk teen'. They have to assume the worst and they didn't in this case."
Mrs Cottier said after a call from his friend she arrived at the rugby grounds to find four medical staff standing over her son and a "retired army paramedic slapping" her son's head and announcing he was drunk.
"It was atrocious, unbelievably bad."
Mrs Cottier drafted a letter a month ago designed to go to the hospital, local MP Bill English and the medical complaints authority. After a cooling-off period, she has now sent it.
Southland chief medical officer David Tulloch said a review process of Mr Cottier's case would take place once the complaint was made by the Cottier family.
"We are concerned by the issues raised around Alex Cottier's treatment and would welcome the opportunity to discuss his treatment with Alex and his family."
The board would not comment further on the specifics of Mr Cottier's treatment.
