(In update)
The family of Archie Battersbee, the brain-dead 12-year-old boy, lost the legal battle to prevent the machines from being turned off. After successive judicial decisions and appeals filed by the family, the machines that kept Archie alive they even went out this morning. death was declared this saturday at 12:15.
The news was brought to the door of the hospital by the mother, who highlighted how Archie “fought to the end”. “I am very proud to be his mother,” she said. Ella Carter, Archie’s sister-in-law, explained that doctors stopped the boy’s medication at 10:00 am and Archie remained stable for two hours until the ventilator was removed. That’s when he “turned completely blue.” “There is absolutely nothing dignified about seeing a family member or a child choke,” she said. She concluded, “We hope that no family has to go through what we went through. It’s barbaric.”
Archie Battersbee, the “born fighter” who wanted to be on the Olympic team
Since May 31, Archie Battersbee has been officially brain dead, following an incident on April 7 from which he never regained consciousness. The last few months have been marked by a legal battle between the family, who wanted to keep the machines on in the hope that his son would recover, and the British justice system, whose decisions coincided with the opinions of the doctors.
Tests on the child concluded that brainstem functions had been irreversibly lost. That is, the medical understanding was that the child was already dead.
Archie is dead, biologically and legally. How would such a case be handled (by parents, doctors and justice) in Portugal?
The mother, for her part, claims to have seen signs of life in her son: she says that Archie squeezed her hand, that she saw him try to breathe voluntarily and that the child gained 40 grams during this month. But doctors maintained that Archie’s injuries were irrecoverable. The child would die this Saturday.
After three new defeats, brain-dead children’s machines must be turned off at 10:00 this Saturday
Source: Observadora
