Sixty-eight days ago, Elliot Andrew Newcomb, at 2 years and 6 months, was welcomed into his Saugus home by his family for the first time in his young life. He defied the odds his entire life, and now has gone home once again.
“It was very sudden and very traumatic. We were devastated,” said his mother Sara Newcomb. “He’ll always be the strongest boy in the world who defied every odd he faced.”
Elliot died Monday when he was being transported from Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital to Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles.
“Our kids (Violet and August) said goodbye (Tuesday), and friends and family came down. Now we’re back at home without him,” Newcomb said.
During his life, Elliot spent 895 days in an intensive care unit for a developed chronic lung disease known as bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or BPD.
He spent time in the Kaiser Permanente Panorama City Medical Center’s neonatal intensive care unit and the Kaiser Center in Los Angeles’ pediatric intensive care unit.
His condition left him reliant on supplemental oxygen 24 hours a day and with a tracheostomy tube as an alternative airway for breathing.
During his time at home, he accompanied his sister Violet to her back to school night, attended his brother August’s milk and cookies day at preschool, went on multiple family outings and smiled as he watched his family share their love for him.
Elliot is no longer living attached to any machines, he is in heaven, his mother said. “He has become our forever guardian angel.”
“Sorrow like this is crushing beyond belief, but we’re grateful to have been given the opportunity to witness him live outside hospital walls,” Newcomb said in a Tuesday Facebook post. “(He’s) in our hearts forever. We look forward to one day being together again.”
The Newcomb family plans to have a celebration of life after Elliot is cremated.
“I don’t want him or his journey to be forgotten,” Newcomb said. “This is not the last of Elliot Newcomb and #love4elliot. I want to do something in his memory.”
#Love4elliot was not only about him, his mother said. “I think it’s about finding light in a very dark place, which we did as a family.”
A GoFundMe page originally created for Elliot’s medical needs will now be used for his cremation and celebration of life costs.
“He only had a little over two and a half years with us,” his mother said. “He definitely had an impact on people — more than some people do in a whole lifetime.”
