MINUTES after Tom Brown’s friends heard he was in a critical condition in Westmead Hospital they were on the phone praying together for the 19-year-old, Orange Christian School principal Melissa Brown said.
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Mr Brown graduated at the Orange Christian School in year 10 in 2010 and was always well liked by his peers and staff, Mrs Brown said.
No relation to Tom, Mrs Brown said her son had been in Tom’s year at the school, many of the staff were close with his family and the violent nature of the alleged assault had shocked the school community as well as the wider Orange community.
Mr Brown was in a critical condition in Westmead Hospital yesterday after he was allegedly struck at a party in Honeyman Drive on Saturday night by 21-year-old Karl Sibley.
It is alleged Mr Brown was asked to leave the party and headed out the front of the property when Sibley punched him once in the side of the head. Mr Brown then fell to the ground and struck his head on the road.
Mrs Brown said staff had been praying for Mr Brown and would continue to pray until he was back at home, in Orange, awake and well with his family.
“We’re praying together, he is pretty strong and it is a severe incident but at the moment he is in the best place possible at Westmead,” she said.
Mrs Brown said she was shocked that the world was becoming a place where you could not go to a party and expect to come home safely.
But it warmed her heart to know that a group of 19 and 20-year-old men put everything aside to pray for their friend.
“He is a well-liked boy who always had a wide circle of friends,” she said.
“He is a very lovely young man.”
nicole.kuter@fairfaxmedia.com.au
