{"id":15353,"date":"2026-04-16T15:46:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=15353"},"modified":"2026-04-16T15:46:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:46:27","slug":"absolutely-horrifying-%f0%9f%92%94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=15353","title":{"rendered":"Absolutely horrifying \ud83d\udc94"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Colorado family is facing the unimaginable as they prepare to say goodbye to their one-year-old son, Alastor, who is set to be taken off life support on Friday after a sudden and devastating illness.<\/strong><\/p>\n

His parents, Eric Ryan and Maegan Coffin, say their once happy, energetic baby became critically ill earlier this year after developing the flu and croup.<\/p>\n

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\u201dOn January 9th, my one and a half year old son, Alastor, woke up congested and struggling to breathe,\u201d Maegan\u00a0shared<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what began as a routine hospital visit quickly turned into every parent\u2019s worst nightmare.<\/p>\n

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The couple first took Alastor to an emergency department in Northglenn, near Denver, on January 9. He was diagnosed and sent home with medication, but when his condition failed to improve, they rushed him back.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAfter they did the X-ray, he stopped breathing,\u201d Coffin recalled in an interview with\u00a0KDVR Denver<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Doctors attempted to intubate him before transferring him by ambulance to another hospital. His mother believes there may have been a prolonged period where he was without oxygen \u2014 something that may have caused irreversible damage.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, Ryan shared the heartbreaking update that their son had effectively been declared brain dead.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt took me a while to be able to even write this,\u201d he said. \u201cWe always understood how severe his situation was but we would never give up hope on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of them deserved this\u201d<\/h2>\n

In a moment no family should ever have to endure, Alastor\u2019s siblings were present during a brain activity test \u2014 only to learn there was no brain function.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy other children wanted to be there for his test [last] Friday and watching them each break down destroyed a part of me,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cNone of them deserved this. I would do anything just to take their pain away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remembering his son, he described Alastor as \u201csuch a happy baby and in his short time he became the center of our family,\u201d adding that he still does not \u201cwant to believe this is real.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Coffin later shared that Alastor had also been diagnosed with the little-known human metapneumovirus, a respiratory virus that, along with croup, can \u201ccause the swelling in his throat and make it hard for him to breathe.\u201d The virus has been on the\u00a0rise<\/a>\u00a0in recent months and can be especially dangerous for infants.<\/p>\n

\u201cHMPV causes symptoms very similar to RSV,\u201d\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases. \u201cThis includes upper respiratory symptoms that sometimes progress to pneumonia or bronchiolitis and wheezing.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Coffin family grapple with their grief, the parents say they are now considering legal action against the first hospital that treated their son, questioning whether more could have been done \u2014 and whether decisions were made too quickly.<\/p>\n

Denied access to his son in intensive care<\/h2>\n

\u201cWe wanted to give him time to rest and see if there was any chance that his brain could heal at all,\u201d Ryan wrote.<\/p>\n

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He added that Alastor\u2019s other organs were \u201cworking fine\u201d and that he was not \u201csuffering or taking up a bed that could be used by someone else.\u201d When he asked why there seemed to be a \u201crush\u201d to perform brain death testing, he said, \u201cthey wouldn\u2019t answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan also described a painful moment when he was briefly denied access to his son in intensive care.<\/p>\n

\u201cI even told the guard that I have been in his room every day and no one has said anything,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like he almost didn\u2019t believe me\u2026 I haven\u2019t threatened anyone here. I haven\u2019t even raised my voice with anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Although a nurse eventually allowed him in, the experience only deepened the family\u2019s anguish.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only has this been one of the worst experiences of our lives but this hospital has made it so much worse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Now, as they prepare for their final moments with their son, the family is surrounded by support from loved ones, with a fundraiser helping to ease some of the financial burden. Their attorney told KDVR Denver that Alastor will is expected to be taken off life support on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want all of this to be over already,\u201d Ryan wrote.<\/p>\n

What a horrific tragedy this is. Alastor\u2019s story is a heartbreaking reminder of how quickly life can change \u2014 and of the unimaginable strength it takes for a family to say goodbye to a child far too soon.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Colorado family is facing the unimaginable as they prepare to say goodbye to their one-year-old son, Alastor, who is set to be taken off life support… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15355,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15353\/revisions\/15355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}