ARCHIE Battersbee loved to be active, taking part in mixed martial arts and gymnastics. But like most kids his age, the 12-year-old also spent many hours on TikTok, engaging with the bil lions of videos on the hit social-media app.
But that app could have been the reason Archie ended up comatose and at the centre of a heartrending legal battle to keep him alive, his mom, Hollie Dance, believes.
Hollie and Paul Battersbee of Essex in the UK lost the fight to keep their child on life-support machines and had to say goodbye when those machines were recently turned off. “Such a beautiful little boy and he fought right until the very end,” Hollie says. “We are broken.”
Archie’s parents believe he took part in the blackout challenge that went viral on TikTok. The dangerous online craze encourages users to choke themselves until they reach the point of losing consciousness.
Hollie thinks this is what Archie tried – she found her son on 7 April with a dressing gown cord wrapped around his neck.
Doctors confirmed the 12-year-old’s brain stem, the area where the brain meets the spinal cord, wasn’t functioning. It contains crucial nerve centres for controlling basic functions, including those that control breathing and awareness.
For four months, several doctors at The Royal London Hospital kept him alive with artificial respiration, medication to regulate his bodily functions and round-the-clock nursing care.
But experts declared it was “highly likely” Archie was brain-stem dead – with no chance of recovery – and it was in his best interest for life support to end.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة 18 August 2022 من YOU South Africa.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة 18 August 2022 من YOU South Africa.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
BALLON IN THE BAG
Manchester City midfielder Rodrigo Hernandez Cascante says his Ballon d'Or win is a victory for Spanish football
IT WAS ALL A LIE
A new doccie exposes the Grey's Anatomy writer who fabricated her life story
'I WILL NEVER GIVE UP'
After her husband, anticorruption activist Alexei Navalny, was poisoned and murdered by the Kremlin, she became the public face of Russia's opposition. In this candid interview Yulia Navalnaya opens up about life on the run, her perilous family life and why she's continuing her husband's fight to save their country
AGREE TO DISAGREE
Trevor Noah on how his childhood squabbles with his mother inspired his delightful new book
PAUSE THE CLOCK
Researchers have discovered that the ageing process spikes at 44 and 60. Here's what you can do to slow it down
MPOOMY ON TOP
We chat to SA's most popular female podcaster about love, loss and her booming success
MY BROTHER IS NOT TO BLAME
Tinus Drotské says his sibling, ex Bok Nǎka, is the victim in the brawl with a neighbour that landed up in court
MATT THE RECLUSE
A year after his friend's tragic death, the actor continues to shun the spotlight
A LEAP OF FAITH
After her husband tried to kill her by tampering with her parachute she thought she'd never trust a man again-but now she's found love
THEY'RE MY KIDS!
This West Coast woman treats her monkeys as iftheyre humans and animal activists are not happy about it