Archie Battersbee: No parent must go through this again - family

[Jules59]

That's an extrordinary picture, jules - half way between a nightmare vision and fascinating - I wonder who designed the system?

If it was designed (as some believe) it needs a lot of improvements. Putting the brain inside a flimsy box on the end of an even flimsier neck is bonkers.

[Stevek76]

Hmm it's really quite a tough box in fairness. The problem was when the brain inside of it started inventing ways to easily go far faster than previous evolutionary pressures had had to cope with!

[simonineaston]

tbh, I think in many ways it was a mistake to get up off of all-fours - although I did come across an article recently that explained the importance in terms of ambulatory efficiency, of having long, straight legs - ideal for cycling, obs! And of course, as soon as one adopts the long, straight leg thing, that's the all-fours option gone for a burton! I've always thought one of them prehensile tails could be v. useful, mind... I mean think of the possibilities eg holding the torch when fixing a puncture at night...

[Jules59]

Hmm it's really quite a tough box in fairness. The problem was when the brain inside of it started inventing ways to easily go far faster than previous evolutionary pressures had had to cope with!

Simply falling over can fracture your skull and parts of it can be pierced by a small screwdriver held in the fist; both with potential lethal consequences.

[axel_knutt]

It appears that the decision was fair and reasonable on the face of it, but when I read that courts will almost never make a ruling against a doctors opinion, it only serves to cast further doubt.

Courts hear evidence from expert witnesses all the time. Why would you expect a judge to rule that they aren't reliable ?

I'll lie for you if you lie for me.


Anyone with an iota of experience of pursuing a grievance against the NHS knows this from their own personal experience. Lies weren't just a response to my complaint, they were the subject of my complaint.

[jb]

The point is that someone who has trained in a particular field is the person to ask and trust because anyone elses opinion is bullsh1t or hear say.

[pwa]

The opinion of the highly qualified staff looking after this patient was, very sadly, that he was brain stem dead. His body, aided by technology, would go through the motions, but he was gone. If correct, that fits my own definition of death. He was already dead. Clearly, we need the experts in charge to do all their tests thoroughly before making such a diagnosis, and we need to allow time to make sure this is definitely how things are. And time has to be taken to bring the family to an understanding of how things are. I have no idea whether these stages were gone through, and perhaps a mediator would have been useful here to review how things had gone and where they now stood. But it seemed to me that the mother was in a state of denial, perhaps understandably, and needed help to get to the point where she could see that her boy had gone.

[Debs]

I hope organ donation and transplant were opted for so some good could be salvaged from this horribly tragic situation.
No mention of this in the news and don't know if it happened (?)

[Jules59]

Normally the brain stem dead person is taken to the operating theatre on a ventilator with continued full support for their organs to maximise the success of transplantation in the recipient. The ventilator is not turned off until the heart has been removed as the heart will suffer serious hypoxia damage if it is not cooled before the circulation is stopped.
It seems that Archie's body was removed from the ventilator on ICU and so his organs could not have been used for transplantation as they would have become unusable in minutes.
The only exception being the eye's cornea, which can be retrieved from the dead body later as it does not have a blood supply and obtains its oxygen supply from the atmosphere.

[Jules59]

Such is the risk of severe damage to a heart once circulation is stopped that much research has gone into keeping the heart pumping once removed from the body by inserting it into a heart support machine. "Heart in a box"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv_vsTL ... NewsAgency