Sean Headifen hugged his girlfriend as he took his dying breath after a brutal attack which started over a $5 cocktail in a Bali bar.

Sarah Whitburn, 19, arrived home in Palmerston North on Wednesday night after dealing with her boyfriend's death on her own in a foreign country for four gruelling days.

The couple, together five months, had been on the perfect holiday until the bar brawl that led to 22-year-old Mr Headifen's death.

The brawl started over a free cocktail coupon.

About 2.30am Sunday, they tried to redeem the coupon at the Bounty Bar. Staff sent them upstairs and downstairs, and then the bartender swore at them and ignored them.

As they walked away Mr Headifen accidently knocked over a glass.

Miss Whitburn turned to see the bartender pick up a fishbowl glass and throw it at Mr Headifen.

"It hit him on his right temple. [I believe] ... that is what ultimately killed him.

"Sean sort of stood there all confused." Silence fell over the bar, and when security staff grabbed Mr Headifen a fight broke out.

Mr Headifen was allegedly punched repeatedly by six men, including Indonesian champion boxer Andreas Seran, 29, who was "good mates" with the security staff.

"They had his arms held behind his back and the boxer guy was punching him in the stomach, that's where the internal damage was done. I jumped on his [Seran's] back to try and pull him off."

Seran took a swing at Miss Whitburn and injured her wrist, which is now bandaged.

Mr Headifen was pushed to the ground and hit the back of his head on stairs.

"I was trying to push in and get him out but they just wouldn't let me. He started to get up and they started punching him and kicking him again."

They were pushed outside by the mob.

"It lasted about 10 minutes but it felt like 10 seconds."

Mr Headifen had a bleeding split lip and a lump the size of a golf ball on his right temple.

"Before it happened he was drunk, but he was talking fine. After that he was slurring all of his words, he couldn't walk straight and he was flopping over."

Miss Whitburn said he was talking to her during the one-minute walk back to their room where she lay him on the double bed at Sari Yasa Samudra Bungalows.

"I said: 'I can't look after you by myself I need to get help'."

She pleaded with reception staff to ring an ambulance.

"They rang the number and gave the phone to me and I said: 'I need an ambulance, my partner's been hit in the head and he's bleeding. I think he needs stitches and he's got a lump on his head'. They said: 'Does he have travel insurance?' and I said: 'No'."

Ad Feedback The ambulance staff said it would cost more than three million rupiah, equivalent to NZ$500, but the couple didn't have this sort of cash on them.

An ATM withdrawal was limited to one million rupiah at a time, she said.

"They never mentioned a free ambulance."

Worried, she rushed back to Mr Headifen. "He was sitting on the side of the bed and had just thrown up on the floor, that would have been from all the punching in his stomach.

"He took off his T-shirt and threw that on the floor and lay back down. I thought he's talking to me, he's thrown up, he's taken his own clothes off so he's not too bung in the head."

She told him she was going to find help.

"On the way out he said: 'I love you' and I said: 'I love you too'."

By now she was frantic. She went to find a pay phone, and going out of the hotel bumped into an Australian man, Sam Rohan, 24. They rushed to his hotel five minutes away to get his mobile phone.

Miss Whitburn called her travel insurers, Southern Cross, to see if Mr Headifen could be covered by her insurance.

The answer was no.

She didn't call for another ambulance as she believed her efforts would be futile.

When she returned to Mr Headifen he'd vomited again.

About 4am, 90 minutes after the attack, Miss Whitburn had a shower to wash the blood off, put on her pyjamas and got into bed with Mr Headifen.

"He woke up and I thought if he's got a head injury the best thing to do is keep him awake."

But all she could do was make sure he kept breathing.

"He had his arm around me and I had my head on his chest so I could hear him breathe."

He was breathing "really fast", she said.

"I tried to stay awake for as long as I could ... just after 5am I fell asleep for maybe 10 or 20 minutes. When I woke up his breathing was slowing down real fast."

He finally stopped breathing between 5.30am and 5.45am.

"He was still hugging me."

She couldn't feel his pulse, his pupils had dilated and his mouth had turned blue.

She ran to the reception and told them he wasn't breathing and they needed to call an ambulance.

"I ran back to the room and was yelling at him and shaking him trying to wake him up."

It took another hour for an ambulance to arrive. She stayed in bed with him.

"I knew he was dead but I wasn't going to leave until the ambulance got there."

Ambulance staff started doing CPR.

"For a couple of minutes I thought it was working."

When the medics called his death, Miss Whitburn fainted.

She came to and Mr Headifen had been placed on the single bed in their room.

She phoned her parents, Peter and Marie Whitburn of Palmerston North, then police arrived.

She spent the next four days dealing with police, liaising with her insurance company, trying to contact family and friends back home and coming to grips with the fact that her boyfriend would never hold her again.

Seran, along with bartender Doni Suastika, 30, and security staff member Nengah Suastika, 34, are in police custody.