Correct decision. His mother recently posted pictures and he is in a very sorry state indeed.
Keeping him on life support is just cruel at this point. It’s a purely selfish decision by the parents. I understand it, but this is definitely the correct decision.
Now watch a load of fucking morons protest outside the hospital again.
I can’t quite phrase my comment without coming across as utterly callous, but suffice to say that ultimately this is the correct decision. I can only hope for the sake of this poor childs remaining dignity that his parents accecpt this decision, allow ‘nature to take it’s course’ and attempt to come to terms with what must ultimately be a truly incomprehensible situation.
Instead, I fear based on his mothers facebook activity that ‘Archies Army’ will be encouraged to ‘rise up’ and this will merely be the latest in a sequence of events that results in this childs’ life being a summary within a wikiedpa article on medical ethics.
**Edit:** As an addendum, here is a link to the judgement for those wishing to read it for themselves:
Just want to appreciate that the tragic cases like this are decided by judges considering the child’s interests and not just the parents, doctors or insurers or something
The situation is already horrific, then I saw the context of the injury – poor family.
Correct decision from the judge.
>”She heard that Archie suffered brain damage after his mother found him unconscious with a ligature over his head on 7 April and thinks he might have been taking part in an online challenge.”
It has to be tough being in denial about this and we have now seen a few cases where the parents in denial have been spurred on by social media to fight every professional and expert to seek one more magic wish. I hope the groups online do not feed more false hope and encourage the family to resist this.
It’s an incredibly sad situation all around.
The poor lad has no quality of life and most likely never will, he’s being kept alive by machines.
His mother seems to be in denial about the situation and is kicking off about the hospitals care of him.
It’s a lose / lose situation and incredibly sad the hospital and parent couldn’t come to an agreement about the way forward without the court stepping in.
I personally support the decision of the court here.
As a parent, I think it’s the right decision. I can understand their pain, but you have to remain educated to the situation. Personally I would rather let my child go peacefully instead of watching them literally rot day after day when I’ve already been told his brain is dead. I can’t imagine making him stay alive artificially and creating a media circus around him. The thought of that is much more terrifying to me than letting him go surrounded by family and love. But that’s just me.
As a parent, this whole situation is the stuff of nightmares. I can’t and don’t want to go through what his parents and family are going through.
However, keeping him “alive” is helping no one and is only delaying the inevitable. They want to fight to get some test done on his brain stem. Why? Even if he was still alive, he’ll be so disabled HE will have no way of life.
They can’t and don’t want to let go of their child, I get that. But they have to. It isn’t fair on him.
Her little boy is already gone. Even if it is possible to get him out of a persistent vegetative state he will NEVER be who he once was. I wish she was able to see that. I hate it that families in denial can so easily whip the media up into a frenzy into this shit and turn the doctors involved in the child’s care into the enemy as if they’re not trying to just look out for their best interests.
So tragic I feel so sad for the parents. Brain stem death testing is carried out by 2 Consultants are a set of multiple tests that definitely prove brain stem death. I’ve seen this multiple times as an ITU nurse. This poor boy will not survive. He needs to rest in peace now
Sadly the mother is in extreme denial – which is understandable – and has turned this into a fight against the hospital who have cared for him. Her Facebook group is full of people with zero medical knowledge encouraging her behaviour and feeding into her narrative. Anyone who doesn’t agree is labelled a ‘troll’. One thinks she, on some level, enjoys the attention.
I’m glad that reddit seems to have some sensible people on here. I really struggle with the pleb masses on social media who have no idea what they’re talking about about and back these poor deluded parents and worse give voice to the bloody CLC…
Horrendous situation but needs to be stopped before we get another Archies Army affair.
>”His heart is still beating,” she said. “Until it’s God’s way I won’t accept that he should go.”
Ok… so let us take him off the ventilator and see if God keeps his heart beating, surely?
Christian Legal Centre should take a great deal of the blame for dragging out this medical matter to the detriment of this child and his parents.
The child is dead and they should be allowed to begin the grieving process.
There seems no issue on which the Christian Legal Centre isn’t on the wrong side. Supporting people in their bigotry (conversion therapy), being a public nuisance (loud street preachers, etc so long as they espouse a particular brand of Christianity.
Christian Concern is also a lobbying organisation with contacts in and influence on the Tory government, e.g. Nadine Dorries. Bleugh.
The spotlight should be shone on them at every opportunity.
This story makes my heart physically hurt. I wholly agree with the decision made but the Mother is in such a difficult situation. Letting your child go must be the worst level of emotional pain you could ever experience and I hope I never have to experience such a thing as I would just be broken. I can understand her want to cling on to any ounce of ‘life’ albeit thanks to the life support machines.
Hopefully she is able to make peace with the situation with time and, I hope, a decent amount of counselling.
I was in secondary school in the mid 80’s and because of being bullied I had suicidal thoughts from around 13 and this was before social media, there is no doubt in my mind that if I was 13 now, I would have taken my own life by now as social media and being forced to “fit in” is 10000% worse.
I find many elements of this case disturbing… The family saying he *might* have been doing an online challenge (but mum on This Morning saying he didn’t spend much time on his phone…), the ‘whole family’ converted to Catholicism after his injury and got baptised – whilst also talking about a Canadian child who was taken to New Jersey because they have rules so religious reasons for sustaining life are taken into account (or similar – sorry, brain tired). The mother on her FB page posting pics of his ‘arterial line’ dressing stained with faeces – that’s a catheter tube poking out from under a nappy. The mother taking about how he isn’t getting nutrition and is losing so much weight – this child was incredibly fit and lean, all muscle. He cannot maintain that muscle mass whilst bedbound due to inactivity – even if he is given PT and passive movements. The family say he has a grip in his hand but posting pictures that show no sign of muscle tone beyond the normal co traction seen in a severely brain injured person after time.
I will be interested in reading the full court document when it is released, but I think the words mum used today in her televised statement will have been taken out of context.
It’s really sad, but his family should just be with him, loving him, not spending time fighting a futile battle.
I’m also saddened that the longer he stays ventilated and sustained using medication to maintain BP/heart rate, the more his organs will be deteriorating. Whatever the initial cause of the hanging, one little glimmer of positivity the family could have got could have been through organ donation.
If she let things go according to “God’s way” he wouldn’t even have a beating heart now, he’s being kept on a ventilator _against the will of God_
The mother said “Until it’s God’s way I won’t accept he should go”.
I’m sorry but he is being kept alive on life support and without it he would have died a while ago. How is bring kept alive on life support “God’s way”?
My brother was brain dead, his heart stopped beating and he collapsed they managed to revive him but his brain was without oxygen for too long, we kept thinking he would recover but after a few weeks and many tests we was told he was brain dead, our family had to make the decision to turn off life support, it was one of the hardest things I’ve been through and I will forever be haunted by the sight of his final breath but he’s in a better place.
In my opinion if somebody is declared brain dead and you keep them alive you’re being selfish, I might get downvoated for saying that but in my opinion it’s true, my brother died with dignity in a hospital bed surrounded by family we wasn’t going to keep him alive for the sake of him being alive, let the poor boy rest.
This is a bit more complicated than it seems.
I think the verdict was always a foregone conclusion, because unfortunately, the boy is brain dead, and has been for a while.
But this is not about the result. I suspect that this court case was launched by Christian Legal Centre with a very specific goal of establishing “brain stem activity” as the discriminator.
Unfortunately, brain stem activity in itself is not a good test for a possible recovery. It is possible that there is brain stem activity, and still no hope of waking up from a coma. Or a person could wake up and be completely without mental or physical activity.
These are questions that should be left to the doctors. They know what they are doing, they have seen other cases, and they have an idea of what kind of quality of life is achievable.
So I am afraid we have all been had, and we will see more of these ugly challenges. Probably one where there is brain stem activity, but not realistic chance of recovery. What is the end goal here? Are judges going to prescribe treatment?
Reminds me of the Louis Theroux doc about the right to die. Some parents (understandably) just can’t let go and all these stories or miraculous recoveries just give false hope. What I don’t understand is the mob that follows cases like this. We’ve all had bad experiences with doctors I’m sure but if there was a chance he’d recover they wouldn’t be saying this.
I need a place to vent this as a mother who has been down the path of having a child on life support following a severe injury to the brain.
I’ve just become really overwhelmed reading comments about how ‘I’ve heard of people waking up out of comas’, ‘there’s no such thing as brain death’, ‘ there’s no way to really tell if he has brain activity’, ‘people have made miraculous recoveries’, ‘how would they even know what he can do when they have him so drugged up’ etc.
To all those people, I say I’m so so glad you’re fortunate enough to be wrong about this. I’m glad you’ve never sat next to your child ventilated, in an induced coma, waiting for the results of cranial ultrasounds, MRIs, ECGs with no clue whether your child will be okay or if they’re already gone, or any number of other possibilities in between.
Many children in our communities have suffered global brain damage, with only the brain stem left. The brain stem controls our basic functions I.e you cannot even breathe without it. I know many parents who’s child only has their brain stem. So they do everything for that child, down to constant suctioning of the airway, because these children lose the ability to swallow they cannot cough, swallow or manage secretions/saliva. So it will end up in their lungs without someone to come suction it out. These children are often life limited and pass away very young because even with the best care, liquid in the lungs will turn to pneumonia. These kids will sometimes spend a year on life support as there is brain activity, so really for all conspiracy theorists that believe they declare brain death to save money or harvest organs it’s just not true, plenty of kids with severe brain damage stay on support for a long time even when the quality of life isn’t what most of us would choose it’s left to the parents to decide but in this case there is no life at all never mind considerations of quality.
My son was in a coma, ‘life’ isn’t determined by hand squeezing or eyes flickering. They knew he had brain activity without any of that. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean much.
Many have said he could come off the ventilator and breathe on his own, I’m lucky my son did. But the doctors knew he would based on the concentration of oxygen they were having to pump into the vent. He was on ‘room air’ which is a good sign a patient is capable of breathing independently. It’s likely this poor child is on high levels of oxygen concentration to prevent desat.
Finally there’s a misconception that doctors always get it wrong, or tell people that they will never do XYZ only to be proven wrong. Examples of people who have been told they may never walk and now they do etc. for those of us who have experienced this we know it’s very common for a doctor to give the absolute worst case scenario. I was told my son may never walk or talk, may not be able to swallow, may be tube fed, be blind, deaf, have cerebral palsy, have epilepsy but it’s very likely it will be a perfect storm of 80% of the above all at once.
I have a healthy, happy 2 year old who loves the beach, is part of a little soccer team, loves to eat pizza on the sofa and watch Inside Out, no seizures since we left hospital, no sign of any development issues at all. It doesn’t mean doctors are wrong, but they will prepare you for the worst when a brain injury occurs, it also doesn’t mean brains are magic and rewire themselves either. Hypoxic brain injury is truly a roll of the dice, after initial insult the damage will start to set in, there’s no real pattern or way of predicting the areas that will suffer, it will vary significantly person to person.
So, it wasn’t a miracle, his brain didn’t rewire the doctors weren’t wrong. It was just luck. I really urge people to consider that there’s so much you just don’t know and it isn’t the same as being in a coma.
I don’t want to sound cold-hearted here but the difference here is that this child is brain dead. If he was exclusively only on life support things would be much different and he would be kept alive regardless of cost. However this child is quite simply brain dead. No medical treatment in the world could bring him back.
I’ve had family(my uncle) who have been on life support with that being the only thing keeping them alive. However their brain still functioned well enough so that they weren’t declared brain dead
Thing about hearts is, they will continue to beat with or without you. It just needs a few conditions to be met and it’s go. The myocardium is insane.
When someone meets brainstem death, their brain is doing absolutely nothing to support life. The head now merely an extension of the trachea and esophagus. There is no longer any blood going into the brain. He is no longer suffering, he is dead. The only people suffering are the family, and the staff who have to take care of a dead person. The family is going to suffer anyway, might as well help the staff by disconnecting him from the vent.
Source: I’m a neurologist who does brain death evaluations, and a parent of a suicide victim.
edit: in my haste to post, a sentence did not make sense. I corrected it.
What was the online challenge that resulted in a ligature round his neck? I’ve just seen it said that his mum thinks it was an online challenge… is this just her having trouble accepting that it’s suicide?
His brain is necrotizing. He’s dead. His brain is literally dead.
Hello I’m an ICU nurse and support the medical team BST (brain stem test). I have witnessed probably 2 a year minimum over a 15 year career.
If anyone has any questions I’m happy to help.
However the tests are unquestionable and the paperwork alone includes 2 doctors doing multiple tests and then redoing it. It also discusses the legal terminology of death and any “outside of the norm” conditions.
> In a written ruling, the judge said: “I give permission to the medical professionals at the Royal London Hospital to cease to ventilate mechanically Archie Battersbee.”
> Speaking outside court, Archie’s mother Ms Dance said she felt “sickened at the hospital” and the judge “failed”, adding that her son had not been given enough time.
> “His heart is still beating,” she said. “Until it’s God’s way I won’t accept that he should go.”
As the years drag on, I find myself wondering whether I’m the crazy one more and more often. But really, can anyone convey to me what part of ‘God’s way’ to ‘go’ involves mechanical ventilation, and does not involve a lack of mechanical ventilation?
>”His heart is still beating,” she said. “Until it’s God’s way I won’t accept that he should go.”
Very odd comment for her to make when it’s mechanical ventilation keeping him alive and actively stopping “god’s way”. Turning off the ventilation is literally doing what she wants.
I don’t think I could forgive my mother if she kept me alive like this and by some miracle I made some sort of a recovery (which is basically impossible in this case). It’s pretty obvious the poor boy was trying to end his life, I was there at the same age too. The only thing that stopped me was worrying about ending up like this but that is no reason to not let him be at peace, it’s a nightmare of a situation.
Edit: I’ve just read the judgement. I’m not sure why brainstem tests could not occur as peripheral nerve stimulation is not part of the usual testing for death by neurological criteria. That aside, the imaging the poor boy has had shows that his brain is definitely dead. It’s now just rotting in his skull which is just awful. A very sensible judgement.
I don’t quite understand this case, so if other people know more details please let me know.
Basically there are two types of death in UK and most of the world (though not Japan). There’s cardiac death – what most people think of when someone is dead. And there’s brain stem death which is where the damage to the brain is such that it no longer has a blood supply and brain stem reflexes are absent. The patient looks alive because the heart keeps on pumping even with an non-functional brain, the spine is still perfused so reflexes like hand squeezing can be preserved, but all the nerves that control the face, eyes, gag reflexes etc. are irretrievably lost.
In ICU we test these brainstem reflexes when we think someone has brainstem death. There are a number of prerequisites, like evidence of a major intracerebal event, normothermia, normal electrolytes, no sedation etc. but the testing of reflexes is a clinical examination which determines death. After 2 sets of tests have been done at different times, the patient is declared dead. They cannot be ‘kept alive’ because they are dead.
We know from Japan that patients with brainstem death eventually decay. Their brain liquefies and after some months their heart eventually stops.
What I can’t work out is if Archie has had brainstem tests done or not? It is possible that because of the hanging aspect they can’t rule out a spinal cord injury which makes brainstem testing more difficult because the apnoea test is less reliable. But a CT angiogram and / or MRI and / or cholinergic test and / or EEG would usually suffice to declare death.
Fundamentally though, if he is brainstem dead there is nothing that can bring him back other than resurrection. It’s terribly, terribly sad and I do feel for the family. But it seems they are desperately hoping that Archie can somehow become undead through will alone.
*Obviously*. Brain death *is* death. You are your brain. When your brain is gone, there is no you. There is no resuscitating that. The fact that it went this far is absurd.
Edit: a now weirdly missing response asked if I think consciousness is generated in the brain. The answer is clearly yes, until you can show that it magically comes from some outside source. If you damage your brain, not only can you lose our alter your memories, but your whole personality. It can change the way you feel emotions and how you react to the world around you. Damaging your brain can change who “you” are. The only way this makes any sense is if “you” are your brain. No floating magic consciousness, or soul, or whatever nonsense you want to put on it would be affected if your consciousness doesn’t come from your brain.
35 comments
Correct decision. His mother recently posted pictures and he is in a very sorry state indeed.
Keeping him on life support is just cruel at this point. It’s a purely selfish decision by the parents. I understand it, but this is definitely the correct decision.
Now watch a load of fucking morons protest outside the hospital again.
I can’t quite phrase my comment without coming across as utterly callous, but suffice to say that ultimately this is the correct decision. I can only hope for the sake of this poor childs remaining dignity that his parents accecpt this decision, allow ‘nature to take it’s course’ and attempt to come to terms with what must ultimately be a truly incomprehensible situation.
Instead, I fear based on his mothers facebook activity that ‘Archies Army’ will be encouraged to ‘rise up’ and this will merely be the latest in a sequence of events that results in this childs’ life being a summary within a wikiedpa article on medical ethics.
**Edit:** As an addendum, here is a link to the judgement for those wishing to read it for themselves:
>https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Archie-Batteresbee-judgment-2-1.pdf
Just want to appreciate that the tragic cases like this are decided by judges considering the child’s interests and not just the parents, doctors or insurers or something
The situation is already horrific, then I saw the context of the injury – poor family.
Correct decision from the judge.
>”She heard that Archie suffered brain damage after his mother found him unconscious with a ligature over his head on 7 April and thinks he might have been taking part in an online challenge.”
It has to be tough being in denial about this and we have now seen a few cases where the parents in denial have been spurred on by social media to fight every professional and expert to seek one more magic wish. I hope the groups online do not feed more false hope and encourage the family to resist this.
It’s an incredibly sad situation all around.
The poor lad has no quality of life and most likely never will, he’s being kept alive by machines.
His mother seems to be in denial about the situation and is kicking off about the hospitals care of him.
It’s a lose / lose situation and incredibly sad the hospital and parent couldn’t come to an agreement about the way forward without the court stepping in.
I personally support the decision of the court here.
As a parent, I think it’s the right decision. I can understand their pain, but you have to remain educated to the situation. Personally I would rather let my child go peacefully instead of watching them literally rot day after day when I’ve already been told his brain is dead. I can’t imagine making him stay alive artificially and creating a media circus around him. The thought of that is much more terrifying to me than letting him go surrounded by family and love. But that’s just me.
As a parent, this whole situation is the stuff of nightmares. I can’t and don’t want to go through what his parents and family are going through.
However, keeping him “alive” is helping no one and is only delaying the inevitable. They want to fight to get some test done on his brain stem. Why? Even if he was still alive, he’ll be so disabled HE will have no way of life.
They can’t and don’t want to let go of their child, I get that. But they have to. It isn’t fair on him.
Her little boy is already gone. Even if it is possible to get him out of a persistent vegetative state he will NEVER be who he once was. I wish she was able to see that. I hate it that families in denial can so easily whip the media up into a frenzy into this shit and turn the doctors involved in the child’s care into the enemy as if they’re not trying to just look out for their best interests.
So tragic I feel so sad for the parents. Brain stem death testing is carried out by 2 Consultants are a set of multiple tests that definitely prove brain stem death. I’ve seen this multiple times as an ITU nurse. This poor boy will not survive. He needs to rest in peace now
Sadly the mother is in extreme denial – which is understandable – and has turned this into a fight against the hospital who have cared for him. Her Facebook group is full of people with zero medical knowledge encouraging her behaviour and feeding into her narrative. Anyone who doesn’t agree is labelled a ‘troll’. One thinks she, on some level, enjoys the attention.
I’m glad that reddit seems to have some sensible people on here. I really struggle with the pleb masses on social media who have no idea what they’re talking about about and back these poor deluded parents and worse give voice to the bloody CLC…
Horrendous situation but needs to be stopped before we get another Archies Army affair.
>”His heart is still beating,” she said. “Until it’s God’s way I won’t accept that he should go.”
Ok… so let us take him off the ventilator and see if God keeps his heart beating, surely?
Christian Legal Centre should take a great deal of the blame for dragging out this medical matter to the detriment of this child and his parents.
The child is dead and they should be allowed to begin the grieving process.
There seems no issue on which the Christian Legal Centre isn’t on the wrong side. Supporting people in their bigotry (conversion therapy), being a public nuisance (loud street preachers, etc so long as they espouse a particular brand of Christianity.
https://christianconcern.com/cases/
Christian Concern is also a lobbying organisation with contacts in and influence on the Tory government, e.g. Nadine Dorries. Bleugh.
The spotlight should be shone on them at every opportunity.
This story makes my heart physically hurt. I wholly agree with the decision made but the Mother is in such a difficult situation. Letting your child go must be the worst level of emotional pain you could ever experience and I hope I never have to experience such a thing as I would just be broken. I can understand her want to cling on to any ounce of ‘life’ albeit thanks to the life support machines.
Hopefully she is able to make peace with the situation with time and, I hope, a decent amount of counselling.
I was in secondary school in the mid 80’s and because of being bullied I had suicidal thoughts from around 13 and this was before social media, there is no doubt in my mind that if I was 13 now, I would have taken my own life by now as social media and being forced to “fit in” is 10000% worse.
I find many elements of this case disturbing… The family saying he *might* have been doing an online challenge (but mum on This Morning saying he didn’t spend much time on his phone…), the ‘whole family’ converted to Catholicism after his injury and got baptised – whilst also talking about a Canadian child who was taken to New Jersey because they have rules so religious reasons for sustaining life are taken into account (or similar – sorry, brain tired). The mother on her FB page posting pics of his ‘arterial line’ dressing stained with faeces – that’s a catheter tube poking out from under a nappy. The mother taking about how he isn’t getting nutrition and is losing so much weight – this child was incredibly fit and lean, all muscle. He cannot maintain that muscle mass whilst bedbound due to inactivity – even if he is given PT and passive movements. The family say he has a grip in his hand but posting pictures that show no sign of muscle tone beyond the normal co traction seen in a severely brain injured person after time.
I will be interested in reading the full court document when it is released, but I think the words mum used today in her televised statement will have been taken out of context.
It’s really sad, but his family should just be with him, loving him, not spending time fighting a futile battle.
I’m also saddened that the longer he stays ventilated and sustained using medication to maintain BP/heart rate, the more his organs will be deteriorating. Whatever the initial cause of the hanging, one little glimmer of positivity the family could have got could have been through organ donation.
If she let things go according to “God’s way” he wouldn’t even have a beating heart now, he’s being kept on a ventilator _against the will of God_
The mother said “Until it’s God’s way I won’t accept he should go”.
I’m sorry but he is being kept alive on life support and without it he would have died a while ago. How is bring kept alive on life support “God’s way”?
My brother was brain dead, his heart stopped beating and he collapsed they managed to revive him but his brain was without oxygen for too long, we kept thinking he would recover but after a few weeks and many tests we was told he was brain dead, our family had to make the decision to turn off life support, it was one of the hardest things I’ve been through and I will forever be haunted by the sight of his final breath but he’s in a better place.
In my opinion if somebody is declared brain dead and you keep them alive you’re being selfish, I might get downvoated for saying that but in my opinion it’s true, my brother died with dignity in a hospital bed surrounded by family we wasn’t going to keep him alive for the sake of him being alive, let the poor boy rest.
This is a bit more complicated than it seems.
I think the verdict was always a foregone conclusion, because unfortunately, the boy is brain dead, and has been for a while.
But this is not about the result. I suspect that this court case was launched by Christian Legal Centre with a very specific goal of establishing “brain stem activity” as the discriminator.
Unfortunately, brain stem activity in itself is not a good test for a possible recovery. It is possible that there is brain stem activity, and still no hope of waking up from a coma. Or a person could wake up and be completely without mental or physical activity.
These are questions that should be left to the doctors. They know what they are doing, they have seen other cases, and they have an idea of what kind of quality of life is achievable.
So I am afraid we have all been had, and we will see more of these ugly challenges. Probably one where there is brain stem activity, but not realistic chance of recovery. What is the end goal here? Are judges going to prescribe treatment?
Reminds me of the Louis Theroux doc about the right to die. Some parents (understandably) just can’t let go and all these stories or miraculous recoveries just give false hope. What I don’t understand is the mob that follows cases like this. We’ve all had bad experiences with doctors I’m sure but if there was a chance he’d recover they wouldn’t be saying this.
I need a place to vent this as a mother who has been down the path of having a child on life support following a severe injury to the brain.
I’ve just become really overwhelmed reading comments about how ‘I’ve heard of people waking up out of comas’, ‘there’s no such thing as brain death’, ‘ there’s no way to really tell if he has brain activity’, ‘people have made miraculous recoveries’, ‘how would they even know what he can do when they have him so drugged up’ etc.
To all those people, I say I’m so so glad you’re fortunate enough to be wrong about this. I’m glad you’ve never sat next to your child ventilated, in an induced coma, waiting for the results of cranial ultrasounds, MRIs, ECGs with no clue whether your child will be okay or if they’re already gone, or any number of other possibilities in between.
Many children in our communities have suffered global brain damage, with only the brain stem left. The brain stem controls our basic functions I.e you cannot even breathe without it. I know many parents who’s child only has their brain stem. So they do everything for that child, down to constant suctioning of the airway, because these children lose the ability to swallow they cannot cough, swallow or manage secretions/saliva. So it will end up in their lungs without someone to come suction it out. These children are often life limited and pass away very young because even with the best care, liquid in the lungs will turn to pneumonia. These kids will sometimes spend a year on life support as there is brain activity, so really for all conspiracy theorists that believe they declare brain death to save money or harvest organs it’s just not true, plenty of kids with severe brain damage stay on support for a long time even when the quality of life isn’t what most of us would choose it’s left to the parents to decide but in this case there is no life at all never mind considerations of quality.
My son was in a coma, ‘life’ isn’t determined by hand squeezing or eyes flickering. They knew he had brain activity without any of that. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean much.
Many have said he could come off the ventilator and breathe on his own, I’m lucky my son did. But the doctors knew he would based on the concentration of oxygen they were having to pump into the vent. He was on ‘room air’ which is a good sign a patient is capable of breathing independently. It’s likely this poor child is on high levels of oxygen concentration to prevent desat.
Finally there’s a misconception that doctors always get it wrong, or tell people that they will never do XYZ only to be proven wrong. Examples of people who have been told they may never walk and now they do etc. for those of us who have experienced this we know it’s very common for a doctor to give the absolute worst case scenario. I was told my son may never walk or talk, may not be able to swallow, may be tube fed, be blind, deaf, have cerebral palsy, have epilepsy but it’s very likely it will be a perfect storm of 80% of the above all at once.
I have a healthy, happy 2 year old who loves the beach, is part of a little soccer team, loves to eat pizza on the sofa and watch Inside Out, no seizures since we left hospital, no sign of any development issues at all. It doesn’t mean doctors are wrong, but they will prepare you for the worst when a brain injury occurs, it also doesn’t mean brains are magic and rewire themselves either. Hypoxic brain injury is truly a roll of the dice, after initial insult the damage will start to set in, there’s no real pattern or way of predicting the areas that will suffer, it will vary significantly person to person.
So, it wasn’t a miracle, his brain didn’t rewire the doctors weren’t wrong. It was just luck. I really urge people to consider that there’s so much you just don’t know and it isn’t the same as being in a coma.
I don’t want to sound cold-hearted here but the difference here is that this child is brain dead. If he was exclusively only on life support things would be much different and he would be kept alive regardless of cost. However this child is quite simply brain dead. No medical treatment in the world could bring him back.
I’ve had family(my uncle) who have been on life support with that being the only thing keeping them alive. However their brain still functioned well enough so that they weren’t declared brain dead
Thing about hearts is, they will continue to beat with or without you. It just needs a few conditions to be met and it’s go. The myocardium is insane.
When someone meets brainstem death, their brain is doing absolutely nothing to support life. The head now merely an extension of the trachea and esophagus. There is no longer any blood going into the brain. He is no longer suffering, he is dead. The only people suffering are the family, and the staff who have to take care of a dead person. The family is going to suffer anyway, might as well help the staff by disconnecting him from the vent.
Source: I’m a neurologist who does brain death evaluations, and a parent of a suicide victim.
edit: in my haste to post, a sentence did not make sense. I corrected it.
What was the online challenge that resulted in a ligature round his neck? I’ve just seen it said that his mum thinks it was an online challenge… is this just her having trouble accepting that it’s suicide?
His brain is necrotizing. He’s dead. His brain is literally dead.
Hello I’m an ICU nurse and support the medical team BST (brain stem test). I have witnessed probably 2 a year minimum over a 15 year career.
If anyone has any questions I’m happy to help.
However the tests are unquestionable and the paperwork alone includes 2 doctors doing multiple tests and then redoing it. It also discusses the legal terminology of death and any “outside of the norm” conditions.
> In a written ruling, the judge said: “I give permission to the medical professionals at the Royal London Hospital to cease to ventilate mechanically Archie Battersbee.”
> Speaking outside court, Archie’s mother Ms Dance said she felt “sickened at the hospital” and the judge “failed”, adding that her son had not been given enough time.
> “His heart is still beating,” she said. “Until it’s God’s way I won’t accept that he should go.”
As the years drag on, I find myself wondering whether I’m the crazy one more and more often. But really, can anyone convey to me what part of ‘God’s way’ to ‘go’ involves mechanical ventilation, and does not involve a lack of mechanical ventilation?
>”His heart is still beating,” she said. “Until it’s God’s way I won’t accept that he should go.”
Very odd comment for her to make when it’s mechanical ventilation keeping him alive and actively stopping “god’s way”. Turning off the ventilation is literally doing what she wants.
I don’t think I could forgive my mother if she kept me alive like this and by some miracle I made some sort of a recovery (which is basically impossible in this case). It’s pretty obvious the poor boy was trying to end his life, I was there at the same age too. The only thing that stopped me was worrying about ending up like this but that is no reason to not let him be at peace, it’s a nightmare of a situation.
Edit: I’ve just read the judgement. I’m not sure why brainstem tests could not occur as peripheral nerve stimulation is not part of the usual testing for death by neurological criteria. That aside, the imaging the poor boy has had shows that his brain is definitely dead. It’s now just rotting in his skull which is just awful. A very sensible judgement.
I don’t quite understand this case, so if other people know more details please let me know.
Basically there are two types of death in UK and most of the world (though not Japan). There’s cardiac death – what most people think of when someone is dead. And there’s brain stem death which is where the damage to the brain is such that it no longer has a blood supply and brain stem reflexes are absent. The patient looks alive because the heart keeps on pumping even with an non-functional brain, the spine is still perfused so reflexes like hand squeezing can be preserved, but all the nerves that control the face, eyes, gag reflexes etc. are irretrievably lost.
In ICU we test these brainstem reflexes when we think someone has brainstem death. There are a number of prerequisites, like evidence of a major intracerebal event, normothermia, normal electrolytes, no sedation etc. but the testing of reflexes is a clinical examination which determines death. After 2 sets of tests have been done at different times, the patient is declared dead. They cannot be ‘kept alive’ because they are dead.
We know from Japan that patients with brainstem death eventually decay. Their brain liquefies and after some months their heart eventually stops.
What I can’t work out is if Archie has had brainstem tests done or not? It is possible that because of the hanging aspect they can’t rule out a spinal cord injury which makes brainstem testing more difficult because the apnoea test is less reliable. But a CT angiogram and / or MRI and / or cholinergic test and / or EEG would usually suffice to declare death.
Fundamentally though, if he is brainstem dead there is nothing that can bring him back other than resurrection. It’s terribly, terribly sad and I do feel for the family. But it seems they are desperately hoping that Archie can somehow become undead through will alone.
*Obviously*. Brain death *is* death. You are your brain. When your brain is gone, there is no you. There is no resuscitating that. The fact that it went this far is absurd.
Edit: a now weirdly missing response asked if I think consciousness is generated in the brain. The answer is clearly yes, until you can show that it magically comes from some outside source. If you damage your brain, not only can you lose our alter your memories, but your whole personality. It can change the way you feel emotions and how you react to the world around you. Damaging your brain can change who “you” are. The only way this makes any sense is if “you” are your brain. No floating magic consciousness, or soul, or whatever nonsense you want to put on it would be affected if your consciousness doesn’t come from your brain.