Warning: This story contains content that might upset some readers. An extraordinary medical intervention is helping to keep some of the nation's sickest children alive. Known as ECMO, it's a high-tech life support system that's often used as a last resort.
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00:00Clinging to life, Byron Blackmore has no memory of the treatment that's given him a future.
00:08I'm grateful for it. Without it, I wouldn't be here.
00:12Last year after heart surgery, the gravely ill 15-year-old was put on what's known as an ECMO machine.
00:19It mimics the work of the heart and lungs, giving a patient's body a chance to rest.
00:25I was terrifying. Terrifying, yeah. To be told your child is that unwell.
00:29He bears a scar from neck to navel, but one year on the Broncos fan is feeling good.
00:36Amazing.
00:37ECMO machines have been used for decades in large centres and available since 2014 at the Queensland Children's Hospital.
00:45It gives the parents that reassurance that everything was done, no stone was left unturned when we looked after their child.
00:55Children are sometimes put on the machines in the most critical of circumstances while they're in cardiac arrest.
01:03In those instances, you know, when you open the chest, for example, the heart will not be beating.
01:08But very soon after you put them on ECMO, it starts beating again.
01:11The medical teams that provide this intensive care are looking after young patients on the edge of life and death.
01:18About one third don't survive.
01:21Baby Sydney Marnie sadly didn't make it.
01:25Born with a catastrophic heart condition, doctors used ECMO to support his tiny body.
01:31There were so many cables. So, yeah, it was hard.
01:36But the intervention did give his family some precious moments.
01:41We knew we didn't have time with him, so we wanted to grab whatever we had really.
01:46At five weeks old, he died in his mother's arms, surrounded by loved ones on a warm Brisbane day.
01:54All the walls were down. It was like, celebrate your son.
02:00The Marnies have since had another son.
02:03But they're forever shaped by baby Syd and the medical team that gave him every chance.
02:09the mother listened to the house.
02:10How many are you facing.
02:14But now what do you do from home point, sorry?
02:19We think this problem.
02:34The Marnies.