Miracle Child Without Brains Dies After 3 Years On Earth

 A Colorado community is celebrating the improbable life of a little boy who died on Wednesday after living for three years despite being born without most of his brain.

Nickolas Coke, of Pueblo, was born with anencephaly, a condition that affects some one in 10,000 newborns. 

 

Doctors never expected him to live. But the miracle little boy defied the odds and was loved and cared for during his too-brief life, his family said in an emotional interview with local KOAA-TV. 

 

"He was never hooked up to any machines, no tubes, no nothing," the boy’s grandmother, Sherri Kohu, told the station. 

 

"He taught us everything, he taught us to love, how to be family. He taught us everything," 

 

The family said the miracle tot’s last days were happy ones. Photos showed him giggling in a pumpkin patch during a recent pumpkin-picking trip. 

 

The first signs of trouble appeared on Wednesday morning, when Nick began struggling to breathe. The family tried CPR three times, but the boy slipped away, they said.  

 

"[The boy’s hospice care workers] told us no more, let him go. So he died at 12:40 today. Peacefully," Kohut told the station. 

 

A cause of death hasn’t been determined, but the family believed he caught a virus. 

 

Last month, Nick’s mother, Sheena Coke, had a second child, who she named Jace Nickolas James, in honor of his older brother. 

 

"He will always be remembered,” Kohut said. 

 

A fund was being set up at U.S. Bank to help pay for the family’s funeral costs. 

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