His parents claim that doctors threatened to take the baby off life support and suggested the child’s doctors had threatened to take him off life support when a French child was taken to the hospital after he nearly drowned.  ,
“ We had 14 days to prepare his death and say goodbye to him”, Nicolas Tétrault, the boy’s father and a former Montreal legislator, told The Federalist in English, his second language. They promoted” to yield the tissues and give them away”
Tétrault said his two-year-old brother, Arthur, drowned in October. An emergency took Arthur to a doctor where , doctors resuscitated him, and he was later , transferred to Montreal Children’s Hospital, where he was stabilized. However, doctors informed his parents that Arthur had head injury and a strange breathing pattern. According to Tétrault, after about five months physicians gave an order — they had “unplug” the youngster from life support on Nov. 29.
Thus, Tétrault and his family escaped to New Orleans, where Arthur is receiving care at Ochsner Medical Center while he is on a vent.
The Crash
Tétrault’s home was renting a house, which came with a pool but no border around it.  ,
” It’s tough to always have great attention, and we did not”, he said. We may include, but at the moment, we opted not to put a fence around the home’s pool.
On October 8th, Tétrault had to go get up one of his six kids from a university recreational activity.
Tétrault remarked,” I forgot to near one of the gates that I’d opened during the day while they were at school.” Arthur went inside, and “long tale short, he drowned”.
The teen’s body was “almost freezing”, according to Tétrault. An emergency came and took Arthur to a hospital, where they stabilized him, therefore transferred him to Montreal Children’s Hospital.
Withholding Proper Treatment
Tétrault claimed that Arthur’s body heat was gradually rising as physicians at Montreal Children’s Hospital aimed to prevent shock. They informed Arthur’s parents that he had brain damage and an irregular breathing pattern after giving him an MRI. He claimed that Arthur even received a lot of morphine.
” They started sedating him beyond belief”, Tétrault said. ” When you receive too many morphine, then it may remove you”.
According to Springer Nature, doctors usually sedate people after they drown to prevent spasms. Sedatives also help counterbalance signs of “neurostorming” such as “induced muscle, high blood pressure, high heart rate, sweating, serious tensing”, Arthur’s recent American dentist, Paul Harch, told The Federalist.  ,
” For the neurostorming, the medications that they put him on are typical”, Harch said. ” At least the Valium injection I recall is a sizable dose, and I don’t know how long he needed those extremely large dosages.”
According to Harch, a global authority on recovering brain injury, doctors typically wean a patient off sedatives after removing him from the ventilator and transferring him to the intensive care unit ( ICU). The French doctors therefore attempted to remove Arthur’s respiration tube.  ,
Our child was able to breathe on his own properly for about 18 time or 12 hours when they extubated him three weeks later, according to Tétrault, just to conduct a test to see if he could do so.  ,
However, according to Harch, Arthur was unable to continue inhaling because his lung had lost its shape. He said American specialists should have given a tracheostomy, which creates an entry in the throat to pass the barrier. He might have been able to breathe on his own because of that.
” They doesn’t do a tracheostomy, and otherwise, were keeping him greatly drugged and told the parents,’ He’ll possess no quality of life, he’s going to be a vegetable,’ etc. “, Harch said.  ,
Due to the tranquilizers they were administering to the child, the doctors were unable to accurately estimate Arthur’s condition, according to Harch.
” He may die and or be comatose the rest of his life,” Harch said,” and they’re telling the kids largely that he will go to the hospital up there, where he was, and they’re heavily sedated,” he said. ” They can’t make that statement. They don’t actually know that for sure”.
Christine Bouthillier, Montreal Children’s Hospital contacts director, provided The Federalist with a statement that said in the case of drowning sufferers,” life is unique, and kids often face severe mental destruction”. According to the statement, this can cause a “permanent vegetative state”, but the team “follows strict protocols” when treating such patients.
In all cases, life support is first offered, and advanced medical evaluations are carried out to inform decisions regarding care. According to the statement, treatments are made to change as symptoms like seizures or breathing difficulties develop. When it seems unlikely to be possible to see a meaningful recovery of brain functions, shifting the focus to ensuring comfort and reducing suffering is advised.
Harch said the Canadian doctors withheld “normobaric” oxygen treatment — which repairs “neurological trauma” by administering nearly-pure oxygen — as well as “hyperbaric” oxygen treatment, which delivers oxygen at higher-than-usual pressure and has helped restore brain function of drowning victims.
Harch said,” It was all about attempting to put him in a hyperbaric chamber as soon as possible.” ” The parents then pulled every possible move, influence, leverage — whatever they could — to try to get their son treated, and even tried to do the very innocuous but potentially helpful’ normobaric’ oxygen. And all of that the medical staff did was to a great extent.
” Haw the Organs and Give Them Away”
Doctors were” constantly talking about” harvesting Arthur’s organs, according to Tétrault.
He claimed that” they were killing him with all these drugs, and they were using them to defend the claim that they were encouraging the seizure of organs and dispensing with them.” They “weren talking about it all the time.”
Tétrault claimed that Sam Shemie ( of the pediatric ICU and advanced care unit ), Samara Zavalkoff ( of the pediatric and advanced ICU), and Stephen Liben ( of palliative care and pediatric advanced care ) — along with several nurses— suggested the removal of Arthur’s organs.
” They don’t force you, but the way it’s done, it’s kind of a strong marketing from the head of the pediatric unit”, he said. ” Everybody talks about it over there”.
The hospital claims in its statement that “discussions about organ donation” are “managed by Transplant Québec” and that they “never influence patient care.” We don’t ask families to meet with a Transplant Québec representative or discuss organ donation before death is an option at the MCH.
According to The Federalist, Canadian doctors can extract organs from euthanasia victims, but some medical professionals advise doing so while the patient is still alive for the best organ quality.
Tétrault said he and his wife met with Shemie, Zavalkoff, and Liben.
” My wife and I, they brought us in a death squad meeting and they told us basically, Arthur would be unplugged on Nov. 29″, Tétrault said.  ,
The Federalist reached out to the three doctors, but they did not comment in time for publication. In a statement from Montreal Children’s Hospital, it is stated that” we offer the option of a second medical opinion and/or a potential transfer” if families wish to continue living on medical assistance despite medical advice or wishes to use experimental treatments that are not recommended.
Fleeing to America
Tétrault and his wife scheduled an urgent flight to America so that Arthur could receive treatment from Harch in New Orleans. To pay for the air ambulance and medical staff, Tetrault quickly sold properties like apartments. He said,” I asked everyone who could give me some time to help me.”
Arthur’s air ambulance departed on Nov. 25— four days before his scheduled withdrawal of medical treatment. ” We were able to bring him to New Orleans at Ochsner Hospital, which was amazing”, Tétrault said.
Arthur on the air ambulance. Courtesy of Nicolas Tetrault
” Think of that”, Harch said. It’s not quite euthanasia, but it’s possible to essentially terminate care for this child by flying to medically extract a Canadian citizen to come for hyperbaric treatment to actually skirt and avoid the Canadian.
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of Canadian nonprofit Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said the nation’s socialized medical system only allows for “approved treatments”, and “even then, the system is overburdened with more patients than they can possibly treat”.
The Montreal physicians, in the case of Arthur Tétrault, declined to administer hyperbaric oxygen because it wasn’t listed as a medical option in Canada. What’s even more concerning is that the doctors were urging patients to stop receiving treatment,” Schadenberg said. Arthur is fortunate that his father has requested treatment and that he was willing to send him to Louisiana to get hope-filled treatment.
Fighting for Arthur’s Life
Tétrault said the transition between hospitals was difficult, as he felt the Canadian doctors misrepresented Arthur’s medical condition.  ,
According to him,” The hospital in Montreal was overly negative about Arthur’s medical condition, so the hospital in the U.S. will not be accepting him at all.”  ,
The medical team in America was surprised by the boy’s better-than-expected condition when he arrived, according to Harch, as Arthur was represented to them as “near dead”.
” They were led to believe that they were coming to pick up a near-dead child, that this kid had no chance — nothing”, Harch said. It was eye-opening when they arrived and saw the condition that he was in, which was not as severe as what had been described, and it made them understand why this father and mother took their extreme actions.
Nicolas with Arthur in the hospital. Courtesy of Nicolas Tetrault
The boy has shown significant signs of improvement since Harch has been caring for Arthur at Ochsner Medical Center. Harch said doctors have now given the boy a tracheostomy, are weaning him off sedatives, and treated him with “normobaric” oxygen, which doctors refused to give Arthur in Canada.
” He is moving more and he is more alert and awake”, Harch said.  ,
Tétrault said his son is now breathing on his own, no longer has dystonia ( a movement disorder causing muscle contractions ), no more “brainstorming” ( or neurostorming ), and he has a gag reflex — , though medical staff , in Montreal” said he would never have a gag reflex”.
” All the dice were rigged”, Tétrault said.  ,
Arthur underwent his first round of “hyperbaric” oxygen treatment on Monday, according to Tétrault. He recorded his wife and son’s conversation with Harch, who claimed Arthur is “gaining purposeful movement” in his arms.
According to Tétrault, the difference in Arthur’s treatment comes from the differences between American and Canadian hospital systems.
” In Quebec, it’s a socialist hospital system where the patients are seen as an expense. In the U. S., a patient is seen as an income, as a client”, he said. It “makes the entire difference in the world”
The staff writer for election integrity is Logan Washburn. He is a The College Fix spring 2025 fellow. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan grew up in rural Michigan but is originally from Central Oregon.
