What part of "brain stem dead" ...

[Nick]

Ah !  Now when someone is declared brain stem dead I thought that was it .Thats what we have been told .  Appears not to be the case as a kid was just on Sky news  who was declared such but started breathing on his own just hours before the organ harvesters could get to work on him . Showed a film of him playing football with his mates a few months later

I dont know the ins and outs of the tests that have been carried out on this kid or the one who survived  but saying he is brain stem dead doesnt cut it given the latest revelations .

Hence the reason for my post 😉 

[patman post]

God rest the lad's soul and all sympathy to his family.

I had a chat with a cheerfully ghoulish doctor friend if mine a while back, and she said that she liked to keep her patients alive for six months, because as often as not a new treatment appeared in that time and that gave them another few months.

Can't see much wrong with that. After all, it's what brought about the treatments for asthma, diabetes, tetanus, etc, that many now live rough and survive...


PS — I cannot imagine the horror of living through what Archie's parents have...

[Borchester]

Archie died today. His parents are bereft of course but I hope they have comfort in that they tried everything just as they promised their lad. RIP Archie.

God rest the lad's soul and all sympathy to his family.

I had a chat with a cheerfully ghoulish doctor friend if mine a while back, and she said that she liked to keep her patients alive for six months, because as often as not a new treatment appeared in that time and that gave them another few months.

[T00ts]

Archie died today. His parents are bereft of course but I hope they have comfort in that they tried everything just as they promised their lad. RIP Archie.

[johnofgwent]

If I am to believe what Sky News was putting across the bottom of the screen last night, the European Court of Human Rights has strangely decided not to poke it's nose in.

I'm surprised, but this means the matter is finally closed.

[Streetwalker]

Nick the kid is brain stem dead , that means there is no potential for recovery . Saying we should keep bodies functioning in case a cure is found would mean millions of dead people on life support machines . For how long , 3 weeks , 3 years , 300 ?

Ah !   Now when someone is declared brain stem dead I thought that was it .Thats what we have been told .  Appears not to be the case as a kid was just on Sky news  who was declared such but started breathing on his own just hours before the organ harvesters could get to work on him . Showed a film of him playing football with his mates a few months later 

I dont know the ins and outs of the tests that have been carried out on this kid or the one who survived  but saying he is brain stem dead doesnt cut it given the latest revelations . 

[T00ts]

But the whole point is that giving the final answer is what they are there to do

Yes I see that but I'm gentler than you and can see the human side even of judges. 

[johnofgwent]

But courts are made up human beings who would perhaps not want to be in the position of giving the final answer. I am not surprised that they left options open.

But the whole point is that giving the final answer is what they are there to do

[johnofgwent]

I don't see it as denial, who's to say that in 3 weeks time some amazing cure that could bring him round won't be found? As a parent you have to think like that.

Don't forget I have been put in the position of making that decision.

It was glaringly obvious there was not a chance in hell Emma would have survived the proposed caesarian delivery and immediate open chest surgery.

I've DONE that open chest procedure myself.

I wrote it up in the materials and methods when we used it to extract the heart and lungs from a living animal to insert in our perfusion environment so we could test the curative properties of antidotes to chemical agents likely to be used against our troops

I know exactly how fragile / friable the diaphragm is and how impossible it would have been to carry out that process in 1988.

The consultants offering Moira that false hope thought I was a computer programmer.

The head of department who sought my permission to receive Emma's corpse for medical dissection and research knew me as one of the trainer's of his pre clinical medical students and more besides. Naturally I asked him for his opinion on the success rate of the proposed procedure I had rejected as preposterous. 

As you might expect his response was entirely defensive of my decision not to proceed but considering he started by showing me the ultrasound pics that laid bare the catastrophic nature of the defect ... It would be fair to say he had only one way to go from there, the same way I went.

As a parent who has made the hard choice because the alternative was preposterous I feel incandescently angry this woman has not been led to face the awful truth.

[Streetwalker]

I don't see it as denial, who's to say that in 3 weeks time some amazing cure that could bring him round won't be found? As a parent you have to think like that.

Nick the kid is brain stem dead , that means there is no potential for recovery . Saying we should keep bodies functioning in case a cure is found would mean millions of dead people on life support machines . For how long , 3 weeks , 3 years , 300 ?

[T00ts]

No you can't but thats why the courts should have put the poor woman out of her missery long ago by withdrawing the right to appeal . I think after two different courts (having seen all the evidence ) had come to the same conclusion that the kid was deceased that should have been that .
As long as there was an option mum will keep fighting for her son , removing the options would have been the kindest thing to do .

But courts are made up human beings who would perhaps not want to be in the position of giving the final answer. I am not surprised that they left options open. 

[Nick]

Look, I know it's tough..

I've been here twice, once holding a tiny white box for my brother, the second time holding a pickling jar.

But yesterday I heard, for the first time, the mother of the kid who is lying dead in all but name in an ICU bed having come off badly in some bloody stupid online challenge.

The kid is dead. He isn't coming back. Ironically if this woman's words are to carry any weight then they ought to turn the damn machine off and see if he still breathes.

Because he won't of course.

But this damn Blonde bimbo is blocking an ICU bed and greasing the palms of a dozen lawyers to no useful purpose whatever.

Time to have the cleaner vacuum the room using the only plug socket available ..

Anything else is a pointless waste of time and money and prolongs the inevitable and frankly makes it worse.

The lawyers involved here should be struck off for profiting from delusion

I don't see it as denial, who's to say that in 3 weeks time some amazing cure that could bring him round won't be found? As a parent you have to think like that. 

[Streetwalker]

You can't blame a mother fighting on John.....that's what they do.

No you cant but thats why the courts should have put the poor woman out of her missery long ago by withdrawing the right to appeal . I think after two different courts (having seen all the evidence ) had come to the same conclusion that the kid was deceased that should have been that .
As long as there was an option mum will keep fighting for her son , removing the options would have been the kindest thing to do . 

[T00ts]

Who are we to judge what should happen? Archie is kept functioning while his parents search every avenue in their belief that he will return and recover. In her position I have no idea what I would do.  This is another story similar to other recent ones and it's heartbreaking for the parents but possibly also for those treating and nursing him. In the end they will have to let him go and leave it in God's hands. I just hope that then they will at least have the confidence that they kept their promise and fought to the end.

[Barry]

Having read this report:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-61829522

It seems that the process has come to an end. Perhaps some of his organs might be used to improve life for someone waiting for a transplant.
I see the Christian Legal Centre got involved and that Hollie says:

""It is for God to decide what should happen to Archie, including if, when and how he should die.
"As long as Archie is fighting for his life, I cannot betray him," she said.
She said she was "living every parent's worst nightmare" and vowed not to give up."


Then it is time for the NHS to switch off the machines and let God decide, because it is men that are keeping his body fresh at the moment, and for what?