IDK why but this horrible story has really hit home with me. I’m assuming people opening this thread know who I mean but in case not; this young lad seems to have fallen ill as a result of some pointless social media ‘blackout challenge’ and since then has been in a coma, with doctors saying he is brainstem dead with no chance of recovery. Since then he’s been the subject of a tug of war to decide who has the final say in his treatment or withdrawal thereof; his parents or the medical profession, with increasing seniority of courts ruling as we go.

What a horrific thing for all to have to go through, and particularly when as senseless as a dumb tiktok challenge. What idiot even dreams stuff like that up and should platforms shut it down at source? And where does the responsibility for deciding what treatment he gets really reside, morally as well as legally.

I’ve got impressionable age kids, but where do you begin in discussing this sort of thing with them. And I know as kids we did stupid shit too, but this just feels different. They’ll both be getting an extra hug tonight.

And where does the responsibility for deciding what treatment he gets really reside

Absolutely not with the parents who are clearly happy to drag this out as long as possible consuming vast amounts of resource, ignoring everything they are told by people who know what they are talking about. Clearly no thought for the future of the lad either, if by some miracle he wakes up his quality of life will be dire.

Agreed that the parents aren’t possibly in a position to tell what’s right here. However it really doesn’t help that she continually fans the flames with comments like “he’s making considerable progress”

I agree on the quality of life thing (but that’s a whole wider argument possibly entering religion and even eugenics territory), and being a scientist myself I don’t generally tend to disagree with the

ignoring everything they are told by people who know what they are talking about.

but https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60839972. Are they 100.0% certain? Can they ever be?

It’s just turned into a circus, yes it’s the saddest thing possible, but medical experts, the supreme court, and the other courts she’s used have all agreed that there is no chance of recovery, and concur with the medical consultants and doctors on the diagnosis.

The negativity the mother has aimed at the hospital and courts is just not good, yes she’s grieving, but the progress that only she has witnesses, the public slating of the hospital, the daily press conferences, it just leaves a sour feeling about this whole thing, the focus isn’t on Archie, it’s on his mum, who is not a medical or legal expert to my knowledge.

always amazes me that those who are emotionally involved seem to have much more knowledge than those who have many years of medical training and expertise  in these cases.

but https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60839972. Are they 100.0% certain? Can they ever be?

The difference is that this child has not been diagnosed as brain dead, the parents have stated they won’t give up until that diagnosis.

There is no good outcome for any of these cases unfortunately, a life in a hospital bed, being kept alive by modern medicine and machinery, or death at such a young age, it’s horrific either way, for me, the Archie Battersbee case is made worse by the constant press coverage, it is just playing with the families emotions to gain public following in a lot of instances.

We have a legal system like this to at least give injustices a chance to be overturned at a higher court. If that means that tragic lost causes like this get pursued to the nth degree, so be it, it’s the price you pay for having the opportunity to appeal.

I think we have to give the mum a pass and accept that she is just fighting for her son. Perhaps she has been poorly advised, perhaps she just doesn’t want to hear the advice she’s been given.

The difference is that this child has not been diagnosed as brain dead, the parents have stated they won’t give up until that diagnosis.

My understanding was that he has been described as ‘brain stem dead’, which is the same thing effectively. Effectively he is already dead, it is just that machines are maintaining pretty much all his bodily functions.

this young lad seems to have fallen ill as a result of some pointless social media ‘blackout challenge’ and since then has been in a coma

Im not sure its known for certain, more that its an assumption of one of the parents?

We are rightly not party to the full medical details of the case. Those that are have come to a common conclusion. It’s a tragic case but the multiple professionals and courts have decided. I’m more concerned about the events that led to the tragedy, if indeed it was such and not simply a medical event. That has been much less reported.

Im not sure its known for certain, more that its an assumption of one of the parents?

It will be looked into as part of the inquest which can’t proceed until he is declared dead. The common belief is that he committed suicide as there’s no evidence to suggest he was taking part in an online challenge (and no such online challenge exists, just moral panic about similar challenges going as far back as the 70s but never proven to exist).

I can see why the parents are having difficulty accepting that their son took his own life especially with the religious nut jobs that are paying to front her legal challenges and convincing her of her own story.

I fear the parents in these cases are often significantly manipulated by the religious groups who involve themselves to “support” them.

The second Secret Barrister book has a good chapter on this type of case and the way in which they are reported in the media.

The subject is covered in the Secret Barristers “Fake Law” book, with regards to a previous case where a social media storm whipped up a mob who tried to enter a hospital and try to “rescue” the child.

As a parent, how on earth do you make the choice to turn off life support? How do you accept that there is effectively no hope? And I wonder if the circumstances of his injury are a cause of even further grief in this case?

There is a right to life, but not a right to existence. We stop our animals suffering, but understandably struggle to do the same for our children. Which is why the law is there to make an impartial decision on the facts, not emotion.

My heart goes out to all concerned.

Putting aside the tragic nature of the events still to be faced by his parents, two things strike me:

1. His initial injury has been attributed to a stupid / dangerous viral craze on social media

2. 4m young people now have referrals to NHS mental health services – with many childrens charities and medical practitioners attributing cause to social media e.g. extreme weight loss, bullying via vanishing messages, post a photo every hour or get humiliated etc etc.

It’s clear that social media has had a catastrophic impact on young people and they need greater protection from services where they are the unwitting product.

4m young people now have referrals to NHS mental health services –

That’s… pretty shocking to be honest. I knew it was really bad but that’s millions in excess of what I expected it to be?

That’s for referrals, but many are waiting months and even years in some cases to get seen. It’s also recognised that in order for talking therapies to be effective, the patient to therapist relationship needs to work and (as an example) the therapist my son was referred to they just couldn’t connect at all. Not a criticism of her specifically, she’s probably great at her job but to wait a long time for treatment and then when you can’t work with who you’ve been assigned to, to go back on the list again is very hard. In the end we’ve had to go private in order to find the right one.

CAMHS is such a mess, right now.

1. His initial injury has been attributed to a stupid / dangerous viral craze on social media

only by his mother

Where are you getting 4m from? There aren’t even 4m people in the 10 – 19 age group according to the 2821 ONS data

My understanding was that he has been described as ‘brain stem dead’, which is the same thing effectively. Effectively he is already dead

I assumed brain stem dead is the more accurate/medical terminology and brain dead more colloquial.

One of the earlier judges nailed it in saying that the treatment is prolonging his death not his life.

It’s desperately sad and inferno so sorry for them all, but mum is just continually making it worse. Easy to sit here and say, I know, but the focus needs to be on a dignified death and then on the stupid and ridiculous online challenge that was the cause of this tragedy

I fear the parents in these cases are often significantly manipulated by the religious groups who involve themselves to “support” them.

The parents are being “supported” by the Cristian Legal Centre, which is funded by US right wing nutjobs.

Good point. 4m can’t be right……

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/15/young-mental-health-referrals-double-in-england-after-lockdowns

I can understand why the mother would wish to hold on to the slightest shred of hope – but that has now gone.
Why would the ECHR come to a different decision to all of the english courts?
If the parents are being funded by a US religious set-up, that’s a concern and will likely be repeated as desperate parents will do anything and not ask questions of those offering ‘help and support’.

I fear the parents in these cases are often significantly manipulated by the religious groups who involve themselves to “support” them.

Those groups are dangerous – right wing Christian fundamentalists who find parents they can easily manipulate in a time of grief and then publicise the hell out of it to fundraise for themselves.

They pop up every year or so, one case that gets more publicity than every other death put together.

MCTD puts my thoughts better than I can.

I understand it’s not been possible to do brain stem death testing due to the nature of Archie’s brain injury.
It is a shame the fundamentalists have got their claws into his mum. They are parasites and have made the inevitable far worse.

mashr
Free Member
1. His initial injury has been attributed to a stupid / dangerous viral craze on social media

only by his mother

Yes, the original thought was suicide and it’s now become this viral challenge that doesn’t appear to exist.

I don’t see this having a happy ending, the press have built it up, and from rumours around the net, it looks like the press may have a story on the mother that’ll give them more sales, if this is true, it’ll be the age old tale, build em up, knock em down, courtesy of the tabloids.

Terrible for all involved.

I’m grateful that we have laws and a process that removes the emotion from a situation and make a judgement on facts.

Absolutely not with the parents who are clearly happy to drag this out as long as possible consuming vast amounts of resource, ignoring everything they are told by people who know what they are talking about. Clearly no thought for the future of the lad either, if by some miracle he wakes up his quality of life will be dire.

Whilst I agree that this has gone way beyond the parent’s capacity to decide, the aforementioned Secret Barrister book and the chapter on Charlie Gard gives me great sympathy for Alfie’s mum who I suspect is being played in the most horrific way.

Wot he said

Crazylegs that is

always amazes me that those who are emotionally involved seem to have much more knowledge than those who have many years of medical training and expertise in these cases.

Question everything… always.
Just because some are deemed to be “experts” in their profession, aren’t always correct.
Personal examples .

1. After suffering 2 miscarriages, we had a successful pregnancy . Got to 30 weeks and the wife was having cramps and pains. Went to see GP who tried to listen for baby’s heartbeat. Couldn’t detect one, so proceeded to tell her that she had had a placental abruption. The Dr rang me to ask me to pick her up and explained what had happened. I was on my way home at the time in the car . That was a tough journey I can tell you. Got there , picked her up and took her to the maternity ward. You can just imagine the state she was in. The head midwife came in , and took us to have a scan.
You can imagine the relief when she declared everything was OK.
I wanted the GP punished for what she had done, but she denied it and the others in the practice stuck by her. Wife didn’t want the fight so left it at that.

2. 5 odd years later , pregnant again after 2 more miscarriages. Wife found out her oestrogen levels were dropping (by accident as her notes had been left out during a routine trip to hospital .She had previously read on the internet that this could have a bearing on miscarriages ( she had done a lot of research on the matter). Mentioned to the Dr who immediately poo pooed it. She had to battle to get her oestrogen levels checked over next 3 days, and they were dropping each time. Spoke to a consultant she knew through kids school friend, and he agreed to let her try progesterone.
After a while the levels went up . It is now a recognised treatment for women who have had premature births and miscarriage problems .
Had we taken advice of first Dr then our youngest probably wouldn’t be here .

3. During that pregnancy , she had to take anti biotics for an infection she picked up. The ANTI NATAL clinic had referred back to her GP to get them to prescribe them . She picked up prescription, then googled what he had given her. These were specifically not recommended to be taken if pregnant as they could be fatal for the baby. She rang up to question why he had prescribed them and his response was “oh, you are pregnant are you ?”

I won’t go into some of the things I saw whilst at Southampton Neo Natal and Plymouth Neonatal whilst we were there with our prem baby as it brings up bad memories.

Suffice to say , I wouldn’t 100% trust a medical “expert” ever.

awful experiences revs, but anti natal is probably overdoing it a bit 😉

I think you mean antenatal

Suffice to say , I wouldn’t 100% trust a medical “expert” ever.

I doubt there’s a medical expert that works in absolutes, they make evidence based assessments, and where there is a lack of data, they make assumptions, each time reducing the overall confidence in the assessment.

That is why we have second opinions, third opinions and so on, it’s why they take scans, it’s why they have radiologists, specialists, etc, they build up the body of evidence for that assessment.

This case has been through several opinions from experts around the country and possibly the world, it’s been through the courts, all of them, and nobody has disagreed with the assessment, the only hope would be a huge leap in medical technology to allow regeneration, both of the brain and cognitive functions, which i doubt will occur in the next hundred years unfortunately.

Terribly sad case, was an adult ICU nurse for many years – its a dreadful situation for family knowing brainstem death testing being done as is usually just a confirmatory process prior to withdrawal, incredibly rare to have findings indicating anything other than that expected.
I can’t help but think once dust settles the family will look back and wish they had spent this time with their boy, talking to him and holding his hand in his final hours/ days. These b*st*rds doing the legal work are causing immeasurable harm to them and his memory for them, should not be allowed.
The rhetoric been used about the staff/ clinicians is damaging and I cannot imagine having to work under that pressure.

awful experiences revs, but anti natal is probably overdoing it a bit 😉

I think you mean antenatal

I was just bloody amazed I got all that in on my iphone before the site crashed for me.
Didn’t have time to do a spell check 😉

Of course the next stage is campaigning for “Archie’s Law” to drag it out for future cases and make doctors lives harder.

4m young people now have referrals to NHS mental health services

Even if the headline number is incorrect. According to one of the leadership candidates mental health is not “proper” healthcare and the funding should be withdrawn for “real” medicine.

eddiebaby
Full Member

Of course the next stage is campaigning for “Archie’s Law” to drag it out for future cases and make doctors lives harder.

Because the system needs changing, but I haven’t actually seen what’s wrong with the system written anywhere?

and nobody has disagreed with the assessment,

The family’s legal team presented an expert witness called Alan Shewmon. I don’t think he challenged the medical assessment as such but his work challenges the current medical orthodoxy that brain death=death. It’s an interesting topic and I’ve been trying to find a good summary of his arguments but haven’t done so yet. It certainly seems to be a fringe viewpoint.

Because the system needs changing, but I haven’t actually seen what’s wrong with the system written anywhere?

The mother’s belief seems to be that her son is severely disabled rather than effectively dead (or in the process of dying) and that the law as it stands which allows for life support to be withdrawn is therefore unjust or immoral.