The father of an Invercargill teenager who is fighting for his life after a hit-and-run on Sunday morning says he has "sympathy" for the driver but is urging him to come forward.
Invercargill bricklayer Ryan Phillips, 19, is fighting for his life after a hit-and-run when he was walking home from a work party early on Sunday morning.
He was critically injured and is now lying in an induced coma in Dunedin Hospital.
The driver fled the scene on Marama Ave South in Otatara, near Invercargill, and has still not been located.
Ryan's father Nathan Phillips urged the driver to come forward to him or the police.
"I have feelings and sympathy for them. What they've been through and are going through is pretty horrific in their own minds," Nathan told AM co-host Ryan Bridge on Wednesday.
"What I would say to them is, 'Please come forward to the police or if you're not confident going to the police, feel free to message me. We're on Facebook, I'm on Messenger. Get in touch with me and just talk to us.'
"We're hurting, they've got to be hurting as well, surely."
Nathan said he feels there is nothing to achieve by being angry at the driver.
"A lot of people have said to me, 'I can't believe you're not angry.' My train of thought was, 'There's no point in me being angry.'
"It's not going to solve the problem, it's not going to fix Ryan any quicker. It's not going to help the driver, accidents happen. We've just got to make the most of what we've got with Ryan."
Nathan urged the family and friends of the driver to convince him to come forward.
"Yes, they're going to get in trouble with the police, that's inevitable," he told AM. "But for their own peace of mind, go and talk to them. Convince them to go to the police or, as I said, message me.
"Do something - something is better than nothing that they're currently doing."
He said his son is making progress "slowly but surely".
"We had a good day yesterday. They brought him out of the coma slightly and he gave us a nice, big thumbs up, which is quite amazing, to be honest," Nathan said.
"It does [mean a lot] and I'm very emotional, I still am currently as well. The thought of having to perhaps potentially bury your son and then a few days later, he's giving you a thumbs up, it's brilliant.
"[It's] hard to explain it, to be honest."
When he was briefly out of the coma, Nathan told his son to be as "brave as he could" and that he "loved him".
Nathan said the injuries caused by the hit-and-run are extensive.
"He's got more broken bones than he has whole bones. It starts at his skull and stops at his pelvis," he explained.
"His organs are a wee bit bruised, damaged and beaten.
"The list keeps growing, every time they scan them, they find more broken bones. It's hard to keep track of the list, to be honest."
Nathan said after his son was hit by the car, Ryan was possibly lying on the road for 30 minutes to an hour before a member of the public stopped and called an ambulance.
"We're very, very grateful that person did stop and have done what they've done a rung the ambulance.
"I don't know how to express my thanks to them. We're eternally grateful and hopefully, we get to meet those people it would be quite nice."
Nathan described his son as a "gentle giant, who is a clown" who loved "dad jokes".
"He's a lovely, lovely kid. He's really, really great, but he does have that side where he's a clown, to be honest. [He's] a likable kid but he's very loyal and a humble boy himself."
Watch the full interview with Nathan Phillips above.
