Archie Battersbee died accidentally in an 'experiment or prank', coroner concludes

Archie Battersbee died accidentally in “an experiment or prank” that went wrong, a coroner concluded.

12-year-old Archie suffered traumatic brain injuries after an incident at home in April 2022. Doctors and his family battled in court over his continuing life-support treatment.

On 7th April, his mother Hollie Dance found him unconscious after an incident at their home in Southend, Essex. At the time she believed he had been taking part in an online challenge.

Previously she believed he had been taking part in an online challenge. On the first of the two-day inquest, she said she didn’t know whether he attempted the blackout challenge or any others on Tik Tok.

She said: “I don’t know whether he attempted the blackout challenge or any others on Tik Tok – which some have described as a strangulation challenge."

As part of their investigations, Dance asked Essex Police to look at her son’s phone for any evidence he may have been taking part in a challenge.

Detective Sargent Tiffany Gore from Essex Police told the inquest that no images of Archie taking part in online challenges were found on his devices.

The High Court ruled Battersbee's treatment should come to an end
Aaron Chown

Senior Coroner for Essex, Lincoln Brookes, said he could not “rule out the possibility” that was what happened neither could police, but he said a decision had to be made based on the evidence.

He added: “It’s clear to me that Archie had always suffered brain injury as a result of the chord around his neck. Which would have prevented oxygen getting to his brain. He then suffered a cardiac arrest as a result.”

His medical cause of death was noted as an unsurvivable catastrophic hypoxic ischemic brain injury.

Brookes said: “It is in my view that it was an accident that went wrong. Either a shock to prank his mother or experimenting to see what it was like to do this {Black out challenge}.

“He had not intended to harm himself but had done so inadvertently in a prank that went wrong.” He said.

Battersbee died 'accidentally or in a prank', a coroner ruled
Hollie Dance

Tom Summers, Archie’s older broker described him as “a joker, very funny, we had a close relationship”.

When asked about their interactions on the day of Archie’s incident he said: “I had no issues or concerns for him, it was just a normal day. On midday on the day he called me asking about where I got my coat from. I do not believe he was suicidal.”

Archie’s older sister Lauren Summers said: “He’s always been a good kid, who was always happy. He would bounce about on the furniture doing gymnastics.

Matthew Badcock, a headteacher at the Primary School Archie attended said: “I considered Archie a success story, especially when given time and support he needed.

When he heard about what happened last year, he said: “I never for one second believed he tried to harm himself”.

Dr Malik Ramadhan, the medical director at the Royal London Hospital, who was not one of Archie’s treating clinicians shared his assessment of Archie’s time at the hospital.

He said: “ Archie was on the break of death for months from the time he was at Southend Hospital. The brain injury which he sustained was unsurvivable.”

He was asked about whether it would have made a difference for Archie to be immediately taken to a major trauma hospital instead of Southend Hospital.

In response he said: “Had he gone to Royal London instead of Southend he would have got the same treatment, with a delay of approximately thirty minutes.”