Brighten Your Day

2-Year-Old Makes Miraculous Recovery After Parents Turn Off Life Support

April 3, 2018

A two-year-old boy with lung cancer woke up from a coma moments after his parents agreed to turn off his life support.

On Christmas Day 2015, Dylan Askin was rushed to Derby Royal Hospital in England with breathing problems and was found to have a collapsed lung. Further tests revealed his lungs were covered in cysts.

Dylan was diagnosed with the extremely rare pulmonary Langerhans cell histiocytosis (PLCH).

Two years later, Dylan's outlook was looking bleak. His lungs were barely functioning. The doctors, in agreement with Dylan's parents, started to withdraw his life support.

"On Good Friday they told us things were looking bleak and that we weren't going to get him back," Dylan's mom Kerry Askin said. "All the settings on all the machines were at their highest and he was still struggling. We had him christened, all his family came from all over to say goodbye, including his big brother."

But as medics withdrew his medication and began to sedate him, the boy's heart rate dropped to normal levels.

"We just said stop, there is still fight in him," Kerry said.

Dylan's oxygen levels started to improve. He was awake and began to regain his strength. On Easter Sunday, Dylan was deemed stable enough to return home.

"Dylan was our Easter miracle," Kerry said. "When we told our eldest son, he said 'he's like Jesus'."