The heartbroken family of Levi Wright has announced their decision to remove him from life support after he almost drowned.
Three-year-old Levi, the son of rodeo star Spencer Wright, drove his toy tractor into a river on May 21 at his family’s home in Beaver County, Utah, and vanished under the water.
Despite miraculously waking up after being pronounced brain dead, Levi’s mom Kallie wrote on Facebook on Sunday that the family had decided to let the boy go as his condition did not improve.
Kallie wrote: ‘After several sleepless nights, lots of research, multiple conversations with the world’s best neurologists & millions of prayers we are here in the face of our biggest fear.
‘Levi showed us just enough to buy us time for all of this. We prayed those things were him defying odds & proving to us that he wanted to stay here but we see now he wanted to give us time to find peace with letting him go.
‘I told you my baby was thoughtful & considerate, I truly believe he did that for us. During this time he brought out humanity across the nation, he dropped so many to their knees & reminded them what truly matters in this world. It kind of gives that T-rex strength a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?
‘Here soon I’ll climb into bed with my baby and hold him as he falls asleep for the last time on this earth. I find comfort in knowing he will be restored to the perfect little boy he was & have the ability to do all the things he loves!
‘I know there are Angels up there waiting to hold him until I can again! We will miss him every second of every day down here but feel without unwavering doubt this is the best thing we can do for him! We love you baby beans and I can’t wait till the day you can “work the ground” with me again!’
Kallie dove in the river to save her son before racing him to the hospital where doctors restored his heartbeat, but he remained unconscious for days as doctors declared him brain dead.
When Levi drove into the river, the person who called 911 frantically told the dispatcher that they couldn’t see him under the fast-moving currents.
Kallie realized he had sneaked off and ran to the river, and jumped into the currents to save him, with her friend saying she ‘was the one who found him, she got him out’.
A huge response of rescue teams from the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office, the Utah Highway Patrol, the Beaver County Search and Rescue team, and Beaver firefighters were quickly on the scene.
The crews administered life-saving efforts before an ambulance raced him to Beaver County hospital, and he was later airlifted to Salt Lake City via helicopter.
Levi had began to show signs of progress and tests were scheduled for the weekend to assess his brain function.
‘LEVI WOKE UP! I am shook, we don’t know much but the doctor said it was okay for me to get excited about that and I AM! My baby is so tough!’ she wrote.
‘He got a little wild so we had to settle him down again but my heart!’
Kallie later on Friday clarified Levi wasn’t ‘fully coherent’ or talking yet.
‘He opened his eyes for a period of time, wiggled with purpose and less like just a reflex as before,’ she wrote.
‘We still have a very long and tremendous road ahead of us, full of unknowns. Spencer and I felt like he knew we were there and could hear us.
But in an update on Thursday, Kallie took to Facebook to share that Levi was back under sedation after he ‘did not handle’ being weaned off it and was being kept ‘comfortable’ as the family awaited the next stage of treatment.
‘They are keeping Levi comfortable, they attempted to wean sedation and he did not handle it. It was heartbreaking to watch & he is now heavily sedated until the next step,’ the mother explained.
The family previously said they were taking the recovery ‘one step at a time’, with Levi undergoing a number of MRI’s and scans since the tragic accident.
Spencer Wright’s family is among the most prominent in the history of rodeo, and his father, Bill Wright, was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
Spencer is ranked 35th in the world, and his siblings are also renowned athletes in the sport.
Kallie also updated her followers on Spencer, writing on Thursday: ‘I know a lot of you are worried about Spencer & I.
‘I can say this in full confidence, I could not do this without him… I already knew we made a hell of a team but this is showing how strong we really are together. If we didn’t have each other then you could worry, but we have who we really need by our sides!