Rodeo star Spencer Wright’s three-year-old son Levi has died after an accident with a toy tractor

Levi Wright, the 3-year-old son of rodeo star Spencer Wright, has died after being taken off life support, family friend and spokeswoman Mindy Sue Clark announced on Facebook Monday. According to People, Levi was sedated and on a ventilator for 12 days after suffering a severe brain injury on May 21 when he accidentally drove his toy tractor into a Utah river. “After several sleepless nights, much research, numerous conversations with the best neurologists in the world (and) millions of prayers, we now stand here in the face of our greatest fear,” the boy’s mother, Kallie Wright, wrote in a June 2 Facebook post sharing that her family had made the difficult decision “to let him go.”

Here you can find out everything you need to know about Levi’s story.

What happened to Levi?

After driving his toy tractor into a Utah river, the little boy was pulled from the water and “life-saving measures were administered on scene,” according to a press release from the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office on Facebook. It is unclear if Levi hit his head or inhaled water in the accident. He was taken to Beaver Valley Hospital and then to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, where he remained in critical condition.

Clark, a family friend, shared on Facebook on May 22 that Levi’s heart was “beating on its own,” according to E! News. Clark added that the boy “has a will to breathe, but his sweet little brain has been without oxygen for too long and there is no turning back.” She continued, “We cuddled him all night and feel very strongly that his spirit is no longer with us. We cannot be selfish and delay this for days, he does not deserve this. In a short time we will stop care and hold him in our arms until his last breath on earth.”

According to another update from Clark, doctors monitored Levi’s brain activity with an electroencephalogram (EEG). But there was little change, Kallie wrote on Facebook, noting that her son “didn’t take it well” when doctors tried to wean him off the sedation. He was sedated again to make him “comfortable” and underwent another MRI, she wrote.

But on June 2, the family made the decision to stop life support.

What type of brain injury can cause this?

Clark’s first update, explaining that Levi’s brain was without oxygen for too long, suggests that he developed cerebral hypoxia. “Although there is little information about what happened, it appears that the incident resulted in a loss of necessary oxygen to the brain, the effects of which can be devastating,” Dr. Joey Gee, a neurologist at Providence Mission Hospital, tells Yahoo Life. “The brain can only go a few minutes without oxygen before certain brain cells show damage due to hypoxia or anoxia. Then they start to die.” The condition of a person with cerebral hypoxia can deteriorate rapidly, according to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

The Wright family noted that while Levi was sedated, doctors worked hard to keep his body cool and fight fever-like symptoms, an approach Gee said is designed to protect the brain and other organs after a traumatic injury. “However, when the brain is deprived of oxygen for a prolonged period of time, the effects can be global,” Gee explains. “If brain activity remains silent and important brain stem activities are lost, the brain may be in a state of cerebral brain death.”

Alternatively, there may still be activity in the brain stem – which controls basic vital functions such as breathing, consciousness and heart rate – but the person may be in a “persistent vegetative state,” Gee says.

What causes cerebral hypoxia?

According to Mount Sinai, it can be caused by a number of health problems and accidents, including drowning, choking, smoke inhalation, airway obstruction and diseases such as ALS.

“Although I don’t know the details of this tragic case, it appears that nearly two weeks have passed since Levi Wright’s accident, which is plenty of time to make a long-term prognosis,” Dr. Jared Ross, emergency physician and founder and president of EMSEC, tells Yahoo Life.

How often does this happen?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accidents are the leading cause of death in children ages 14 and younger. And a 2019 study (conducted by a leading expert in pediatric neurocritical care) found that brain death occurred in more than 20% of deaths among children admitted to pediatric intensive care units. Most of these deaths were due to children or infants being deprived of oxygen, according to the study.