A 12-year-old British boy with brain damage at the centre of a legal battle over whether to continue his life support system died on Saturday after a hospital ended treatment, his family said.
The parents of Archie Battersbee made unsuccessful appeals at Britain's highest courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against ending the life support.
They also failed to persuade courts to allow them to move Archie to a hospice to die.
Doctors treating Archie in a London hospital have said continuing with life-support would not have been in his best interests and moving the boy to a hospice could have worsened his situation.
The boy had been unconscious since sustaining an injury at the family's home in Essex, east of London, in April.
"I am the proudest mum in the world, such a beautiful little boy, and he fought right until the very end," Archie's mother Hollie Dance told reporters outside the hospital.
"Such a beautiful little boy, and he fought right until the very end."
In a statement after Archie's death, Barts Health NHS Trust said: "Members of his family were present at the bedside and our thoughts and heartfelt condolences remain with them at this difficult time.
"The trust would like to thank the medical, nursing and support staff in the paediatric intensive care department who looked after Archie."
The trust said staff had provided "high quality care with extraordinary compassion" in often "trying and distressing circumstances".
"This tragic case not only affected the family and his carers but touched the hearts of many across the country" the trust added.
Dance found Archie unconscious in the family home on April 7 this year. It is believed he had done an online challenge that went wrong.
On April 26 Barts Health, who over saw Archie's care at the Royal London Hospital, began proceedings to shut off his life support system, saying it was "very likely" he was dead.
A lengthy legal battle then began between Archie's family and Barts Health over the issue of switching off life support. It ended when Britain and Europe's highest courts decreed life support should be switched off.
Achie's aunt Ella Carter told reporters outside the hospital after Archie had passed: "He was taken off all medication at 10 o'clock. His entire stats remained completely stable for two hours until they reduced ventilation.
"And then he went completely blue.
"There is absolutely nothing dignified about watching a family member or a child suffocate. No family should ever have to go through what we've been through, it's barbaric."
