Judge orders boy's life support machine to be turned off

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  • Not missing it OB and I think this is is about to get even worse.

    The woman is already slaggging off Barts and I suspect someone may have told her (or perhaps she came up with the idea herself) that compensation could be had here.

    She seems to be setting things up now for a lawsuit, or at least that's my reading of this situation.

    Well, someone should tell her that she can’t win. The hospital has been very careful to await court decisions before doing anything, and the boy is brain dead. Most of us, but apparently not the boy’s mum, know what that means.

    She will end up with a huge bill to pay, and as she has no prospect of success, she can forget legal aid.

  • I think the parents should be put down too :P What is interesting here is how not having the Human rights court not overturn our high court decisions which can be used against us but when it comes to immigrants....hey ho. Do we want human rights or not and who should be the ultimate decision maker. I think this case is a political headache. Maybe the parents are thinking they maybe able to get on TV shows etc and make some money out of all this. Get enough media stir and anything is possible. Maybe the mother can do a book or am I being to cynical,

  • It reminds me of Michael Schumacher. He is also, to all intents and purposes "in a vegetative state" and this is the opinion of a neurologist. Believing "Michael will come back to us" is a vain hope.

    The parents need to let Archie go. They need to comprehend that he will die soon anyway as his brain isn't functioning and this will kill him. They have been warned that he may die in the next three weeks. They're not listening. They're clutching at straws. This is understandable. Unimaginable tragedy but that is what happens when you cut off oxygen to the brain. It stops working. You are then unable to come back. If there were no drugs or machines Archie would have passed on long ago. He will pass on as soon as they switch the machines off and take away the drugs. That isn't life, that is prolonging the death process. The parents and family need to be freed from this horrible event. If not it will destroy them. Archie wouldn't want that. In a hospice, the whole sad business will simply continue at astronomical cost and end up the same way as Archie cannot come back.

  • It reminds me of Michael Schumacher. He is also, to all intents and purposes "in a vegetative state"

    From the very scant information that has been released about Michael Schumacher my understanding is that he is suffering from a form of "locked in syndrome" where he is conscious and aware of his surroundings, but unable to communicate or interact in any way whatsoever with the outside world. The only interaction that I have heard that he can give is tears when provided with sufficient stimulation to illicit an emotional response such as looking back at his old races, the family movies before his accident etc. He is sufficiently "there" so to speak but completely immobile and helpless.

    Little Archie on the other hand is unconscious and unlikely to ever regain consciousness due to the nature of the injury he sustained causing oxygen loss. Schumacher was a brain injury but Archie is brain death.

    The Schumacher situation is even more tragic because he is awake and can interact (of sorts) but is locked inside a body he cannot control.

    Celebrate it, Anticipate it, Yesterday's faded, Nothing can change it, Life's what you make it

  • The parents and family need to be freed from this horrible event.

    the whole sad business will simply continue at astronomical cost

    And these are most likely the two driving forces of this driven mostly by the media and layers. The parents are obviously in turmoil and the media getting into a public squabble for a story is driving this. Where's the human rights in that. The media should have compassionately set the parents straight from the beginning. What good does dragging it out do. It's like slowly torturing someone for profit. The quicker the machine is switched off the sooner they can move on. After 30 secs of no oxygen to the brain IIRC there is 30% chance of brain damage and after minute there is 60% and after 3 mins you completely brown bread. Realistically after minute of no oxygen to the brain, so no CPR, your gone with very slim chance of full recovery.

  • It reminds me of Michael Schumacher. He is also, to all intents and purposes "in a vegetative state" and this is the opinion of a neurologist. Believing "Michael will come back to us" is a vain hope.

    The parents need to let Archie go. They need to comprehend that he will die soon anyway as his brain isn't functioning and this will kill him. They have been warned that he may die in the next three weeks. They're not listening. They're clutching at straws. This is understandable. Unimaginable tragedy but that is what happens when you cut off oxygen to the brain. It stops working. You are then unable to come back. If there were no drugs or machines Archie would have passed on long ago. He will pass on as soon as they switch the machines off and take away the drugs. That isn't life, that is prolonging the death process. The parents and family need to be freed from this horrible event. If not it will destroy them. Archie wouldn't want that. In a hospice, the whole sad business will simply continue at astronomical cost and end up the same way as Archie cannot come back.

    From the very scant information that has been released about Michael Schumacher my understanding is that he is suffering from a form of "locked in syndrome" where he is conscious and aware of his surroundings, but unable to communicate or interact in any way whatsoever with the outside world. The only interaction that I have heard that he can give is tears when provided with sufficient stimulation to illicit an emotional response such as looking back at his old races, the family movies before his accident etc. He is sufficiently "there" so to speak but completely immobile and helpless.

    Little Archie on the other hand is unconscious and unlikely to ever regain consciousness due to the nature of the injury he sustained causing oxygen loss. Schumacher was a brain injury but Archie is brain death.

    The Schumacher situation is even more tragic because he is awake and can interact (of sorts) but is locked inside a body he cannot control.

    Both of you are using the same language that the media is using:

    brain injury

    unconscious

    vegetative state

    will die soon

    This is interesting and I think based on just these two posts, I have been very cruel on the parents, especially the mother and apologise unreservedly for my remarks.

    But these comments are illustrative of perhaps why the parents are "confused" and are able to be led down a garden path by disgusting, money grabbing lawyers.

    A quick google search reveals that under a MRI scan, even the mynute amount of static electricity caused by wearing clothes would show up under the scan. But there is no electricity in this boy's body because he died months ago.

    He is not unconscious, he is not in a vegetative state, he is dead.

    The brain controls every aspect of the body and the only reason the boy's body hasn't decomposed is because of the machine, but that cannot sustain the life of the organs, because it is the brain that controls the organs, regualting blood pressure, temperature etc. His body will shortly decompose regardless of whether its still attached to the machine, because he is dead. And so the constant media comments that the machine is sustaining his life is as incorrect as it can possibley be.

    He's a link about brain death and I've swipped the pic from that site to put it here:

    What's the Difference Between a Coma and Brain Death?
    Answer: A lot.
    www.life-source.org

    BrainDeath_Graphic_v2-1200x673.jpg

    As that pic shows, even someone in a vegetative state has some brain activity. Whereas someone who is brain dead, there is no activity at all in the brain.

  • Sad situation - BUT- I can't rule out the fact that the parents are being highly selfish in bed blocking and using valuable medical resources which could be put to better use. The lad is not ever going to recover - to all intents he is already dead. The parents need to accept this , let nature take it's course without intervention and get on with their lives. The only people benefiting from all of this are the lawyers.

    The Voice of Reason

  • to all intents he is already dead.

    Again, same thing as LW and Armitage said.

    It's not "to all intents". He is dead. Full stop.

    As for the parents, I am rowing back on my harsh comments about them. I think they are coming under the influence of parasitic lawyers are who just having a feeding frenzy over all of this.

  • And these are most likely the two driving forces of this driven mostly by the media and layers. The parents are obviously in turmoil and the media getting into a public squabble for a story is driving this. Where's the human rights in that. The media should have compassionately set the parents straight from the beginning. What good does dragging it out do. It's like slowly torturing someone for profit. The quicker the machine is switched off the sooner they can move on. After 30 secs of no oxygen to the brain IIRC there is 30% chance of brain damage and after minute there is 60% and after 3 mins you completely brown bread. Realistically after minute of no oxygen to the brain, so no CPR, your gone with very slim chance of full recovery.

    Agan, another misunderstanding.

    There is no oxygen going into the brain of the boy's body, Norra. Have a look here:

    Life After Brain Death: Is the Body Still 'Alive'?

    But even in that very good article, right at the end they muddy waters by talking about brain damage just to confuse things.

    The sad thing is, this boy's organs could've be used by othes, but now they are no good as they would've started to rot weeks ago.

  • He may not make the journey to the hospice. He is going to die anyway and his mum is imagining his recovery and that she will have him back. She would be kinder to herself if she accepted the facts. I didn't say he was in a vegetative state, that was Schumacher, Archie is brain dead. The trouble is he looks alive. He is totally machine sustained.

    It makes no difference whether he dies in a hospital or a hospice because he is unaware of where he is.

    It won't be long before the poor little chap departs. May it be soon for everyone's sake. Archie basically departed a while ago, he is just being trapped here by the machines.

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