A 12-year-old British boy with brain damage at the centre of a legal battle over whether to continue his life support system died on Saturday after a hospital ended treatment, his family said.
The parents of Archie Battersbee made unsuccessful appeals at Britain’s highest courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against ending life support.
They also failed to persuade courts to allow them to move Archie to a hospice to die.
Doctors treating Archie in a London hospital have said continuing with life-support would not have been in his best interests and moving the boy to a hospice could have worsened his situation.
The hospital had made it clear that there were no other options and that Saturday at 10 am, life support would be turned off.
The boy had been unconscious since sustaining an injury at the family’s home in Essex, east of London, in April.
“I am the proudest mum in the world, such a beautiful little boy, and he fought right until the very end,” Archie’s mother Hollie Dance told reporters outside the hospital.
Breaking down, she said: “The last however many weeks since April 7th, I don’t think there’s been a day that hasn’t been awful really.”
Ms Dance added: “It’s been really hard. Despite the hard strong face and appearance obviously, in front of the cameras up until now, I’ve been pretty broken.”
Candles flickered in the shape of the letter “A” and also formed a love heart around a card with Archie’s name in a makeshift tribute at a statue in front of the hospital.