A teenager stares death in the face every time he goes to sleep due to a rare condition.
Liam Derbyshire, 17, needs a life support machine to bring him back each time he dozes off, according to reddit.com.
The condition known as congenital central hypoventilation syndrome, makes sufferers forget to breathe whenever they fall asleep due to a fault in the neurological reflex that controls breathing.
The condition, which affects less than 1,500 people worldwide and is also known as Ondine’s Curse, means the teenager has to be plugged into a life support machine and be monitored by a carer every night to keep him alive.
Doctors gave the adolescent just six weeks to live after birth but the young man from United Kingdom has defied the odds and is nearing his 18th birthday.
His mother, Kim, said: “We rely on the machine to make him breathe and without that, he wouldn’t be alive. If he doesn’t breathe, he dies – that’s it.
“You are constantly on the alert and you worry that perhaps it’s the last time you are saying good night.
“His condition is extremely rare and if we would have listened to some doctors he shouldn’t be alive right now.
“He had the intent for life and so that became our job to make sure he was offered that.”
