Tri-Service

Veteran’s Wife Asks For His Life-Support To Be Turned Off

The wife of a British Army veteran left in a coma after a crash has asked a court to withdraw his life-support.

43-year-old Paul Briggs, who served in Northern Ireland and in the Gulf War, suffered a brain injury in a car crash in July 2015.

His wife, Lindsay, told Manchester Crown Court he would have considered living in his present condition as “hell” and added that he no longer recognised her or the couple’s five-year-old daughter Ella.

His condition is described as a "minimally conscious state".

Mrs Briggs said:

"I think he would see it as torture, just as hell, that everything he believes in and he lives for would just be taken away from him. He would be living for no reason."

"The most important thing to him is independence. He is the kind of person who lives for the moment. He was a loving dad to his daughter, he would want to bring his daughter up."

However, doctors at the Walton Centre NHS Trust in Liverpool, where Mr Briggs is being treated, said they had noticed signs of improvement in his condition.

Medical experts predicted that he would remain severely disabled, even in the best case scenario.

The veteran, who was a police officer in Merseyside, suffered a bleed on the brain, five fractures to his spine, bruising to internal organs and several other severe injuries after he was struck head-on while riding his motorbike in 2015.

The car that hit him was travelling on the wrong side of the road.

It’s driver, 26-year-old Chelsea Rowe, was given a 12-month prison term after admitting causing the injuries by dangerous driving.

A medical report on PC Briggs's potential for recovery said he would remain dependent on others for personal care and it was "highly unlikely" he would regain the mental capacity to make informed decisions.

It added that it was possible he might be able to display emotion and improve his ability to communicate in the future.

His brother, Greg Briggs, said:

"I think he would probably despise the fact that he was dependent 24/7 on others for the most basic human needs. He simply would despise that, he would hate that."