Wellington toddler with ultra-rare condition rushed to Starship hospital after cold turns deadly

Author: Janhavi Gosavi,
Publish Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2026, 3:20pm

A Wellington toddler with a unique genetic disorder almost died after developing pneumonia from a common cold caught at daycare.

One-year-old Archie Eaton was rushed to Starship Hospital in Auckland on Thursday and may be kept there for several weeks, if not longer, his parents said.

Dan Eaton said he and his wife Coral Eaton felt “exhausted”, “devastated” and “f***ing lonely” while trying to cope with the endless health issues that plagued their “sweet” son.

A Givealittle page had been created to support the parents, with travel between the capital and Starship so far costing them thousands.

Archie’s condition meant he was not able to eat food orally, had a range of developmental issues and struggled to move around.

Since March, several viruses had entered the Eaton home, including norovirus, enterovirus and Covid-19, which had made Archie more unwell.

His parents sent him back to daycare last Monday, where he caught a sniffle.

By 10am on Wednesday, he had developed a cough, and by 3pm they called an ambulance based on “gut instinct”.

“He probably would have died that night if we’d kept him at home because it wasn’t clear that he had deteriorated that quickly,” Dan Eaton said.

Dan Eaton (back left) pictured with his wife Coral, his daughter Lily and his son Archie.

Archie has a genetic condition that is so rare, his version of it does not have a specific name.

Seconds after he was conceived, a section of his 12th chromosome was deleted and replaced with a copy of a section of his 6th chromosome.

“There are no literature or case studies about it,” Eaton said.

This unbalanced translocation of his chromosomes has caused him to have a series of health issues.

Archie has central hypotonia, also known as floppy infant syndrome, which means his muscles have very low tone so he struggles to use them.

He cannot sit, crawl, walk or talk, and has hearing loss, respiratory issues and complications with digestion.

All of this is made worse by his inability to eat food orally, or keep food down.

Archie had a unbalanced translocation of his chromosomes which has caused him to have a series of health issues.

Archie was born prematurely and immediately admitted to the Wellington Neonatal Intensive Care Unit as a “very, very small baby”, according to his father.

He used to be fed through a nasogastric tube before he began vomiting all of his food up and dropping weight he could not afford to lose.

“We had some really bad weeks where he was vomiting about 15 times a day,” Eaton recalled.

In October, the then-8-month-old had an operation to reduce his vomiting and to get a MIC-KEY button inserted for direct feeding into his stomach.

Eaton said that, through it all, Archie had remained a “sweet-natured”, “curious” and “kind” little boy.

“For everything that’s been happening to him up until this point, he’s just borne it with so much dignity.”

Archie being held by his older sister Lily.

When Archie was being rushed to hospital, he experienced some oxygen deprivation which doctors said increased his risk of suffering brain damage.

He had been sedated for several days and was now slowly being woken up.

For Archie’s parents, the uncertainty was the worst part.

“He could grow up to be a fairly independent adult with his own hopes and dreams ... or he could be severely disabled and require life-long care from Coral and I,” Eaton said.

“We’ve had to grieve his future a few times.”

The early indications they had received were that Archie was “good” after developing pneumonia, but his recovery would be “a long, long road”.

Janhavi Gosavi is a Wellington-based journalist for the New Zealand Herald who covers news in the capital.