Court Allows Wife’s Request To Switch Off Husband’s Life Support Machine

The Court has granted a wife's request to get her husband Paul Briggs off his life-support machine. Briggs, a Gulf War veteran, was a member of the Merseyside Police when he got into a motorcycle crash which left him in a coma since 2015. Due to the accident, he is suffering from a serious brain injury which has led to what doctors called a minimally conscious state.

Sixteen months after the accident, Lindsey wants her husband taken off the treatment that has been sustaining his life. In effect, she is asking the court to allow her husband to die and the court through Justice Charles has ruled in her favor.

The Guardian said the court of protection, which considers cases related to those who do not have the full mental capacity to decide such as in the case of Briggs, agreed that it was laqful to put him off life support since the continued treatment is not to the best interest of Briggs. The treatment will however continue until after a decision on the appeal of opposing lawyers is made by the court.

 "All our lives have been turned upside down," said Lindsey who has a five-year old daughter with Briggs. "We have been living in darkness and despair, from when Paul had the crash in the first place, through all the uncertainty, having to watch him suffer and be in pain, and all the endless procedures and complications."

Daily Mail said that while the Court of Protection does not identify the patients for privacy purposes, the case of Briggs is an exception as it has been widely reported. According to lawyer Victoria Butler-Cole who represents Lindsey, doctors taking care of Briggs at The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust said Briggs was in a minimally conscious state but an independent doctor said he was in a permanent vegetative state.

Mirror said Compassion in Dying, a specialist charity advising people on advance planning, indicated that written decisions about possible treatment in case of an illness are made in advance only by four out of 100 people making Briggs' case familiar and yet still heartbreaking.