Schoolboy in ‘vegetative state’ rallies after life-support removed

A 15-year-old boy left in an apparent vegetative state following an accident has rallied after his life support was removed.

Jack Dolan suffered severe brain damage when his back-flip off Margate pier went horribly wrong. When his condition deteriorated, Jack was placed on end-of-life care.

The family subsequently decided to remove Jack’s life support, gathering round his bed to say their final farewells. However, since that time, and to the surprise of medics, Jack has shown signs of recovery.

Hope

Jack’s stepfather, David Dolan, explained: “Jack is blowing everything doctors said out the water.

“He is moving his arms, wiggling his toes, holding eye contact and, while in pain with belly ache, looked his mum in the eye and said ‘help’.”

David admitted that Jack’s condition means that he is “life-limited” but added the family were “feeling a bit more positive”.

The Dolans are seeking a medical reassessment and making plans to care for Jack themselves in a specially adapted family home.

Awareness

In 2021, academic research indicated that there may be up to 5,000 patients in the UK with prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC), such as a vegetative state, who are actually conscious.

In a paper published in the journal Brain, neuroscientist Professor Adrian Owen, neurologist Professor Neil Scolding, and ethicist Professor John Keown called for recent advances in technology to be used in detecting “covert consciousness” in PDOC patients.

Reporting on issues raised by the research, Kat Lay of The Times highlighted the case of brain injury patient Juan Torres.

Torres suffered extensive brain damage after choking on his vomit and was deemed to be in an unresponsive coma. However, following a remarkable recovery, Mr Torres was able to recognise staff and remember conversations and incidents from the period he was thought to be unconscious.

Vulnerable

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that if families and doctors agree to withdraw food and fluids from a severely brain damaged person, they can do so without a court’s permission.

Where families and doctors do agree, a key argument in the decision to remove life support is that it is more dignified for a patient to die at a planned, controlled time, with their loved ones around them, rather than at a less predictable time in the subsequent weeks.

This line of argument has worrying implications for assisted suicide and euthanasia.