Love's Awakening (25 page)

Patient file # 1:

Esposito,
Elaine
(1934-1978)
was six years old when she went into the hospital for a regular appendectomy. She never woke up from the anesthetic. She fell into a persistent vegetative state and remained in it for thirty-seven years, one hundred and eleven days, setting a Guinness World Record.

Patient file # 2:

Quinlan,
Karen
Ann
(1954-1985)
was twenty-one when came she home from a party and fell unconscious from alcohol and drugs. Her breathing stopped for at least fifteen minutes on two occasions. She was on a ventilator, in a persistent vegetative state, and did not improve, so her family requested the hospital disconnect the ventilator. Faced with threats by the Morris County, New Jersey, prosecutor to bring homicide charges against them, the hospital officials refused. The family eventually prevailed through the legal system, and in 1976, the hospital disconnected Karen Quinlan’s ventilator. However, she stunned her family and officials by continuing to breathe on her own. She stayed in the persistent vegetative state until she died from pneumonia in 1985.

Patient file # 3:

Cruzan,
Nancy
Beth
(1957-1990)
swerved off the road in January 1983. She was driving a car without seat belts and landed face down in a water-filled ditch. She did not breathe for fifteen minutes, but somehow, paramedics resuscitated her. She was in a coma for a couple of weeks and emerged into a persistent vegetative state. Her family worked untiringly for five years to improve her condition, to bring her back to consciousness, but eventually petitioned all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court for the right to pull Cruzan’s feeding tube. The Supreme Court denied the motion, saying there was a lack of evidence of what Cruzan would have wanted. On December 14, 1990, a Missouri circuit court ruled that new evidence presented by three more friends constituted “clear and convincing” evidence Nancy Cruzan would not want to continue existing in a persistent vegetative state and allowed the removal of her artificial feeding tube. Nancy Cruzan died twelve days after the removal of her feeding tube.

Patient file #4:

Bland,
Anthony
David
“
Tony
”
(1970-1993)
was one of the soccer fans crushed during the Hillsborough Disaster, a stampede of fans during a Liverpool soccer game. He had two punctured lungs, causing irreversible brain damage due to lack of oxygen to his brain. Left in a persistent vegetative state, he was the first person the British courts allowed to die through removal of life-prolonging means.

Patient file #5:

Dockery,
Gary
French
(1954-1997)
was a police officer shot in the forehead in 1988. He lapsed into a persistent vegetative state. Seven and a half years later, fluid was filling his lungs, and his family agonized over what to do: operate or let him go. They opted for lung surgery, and on February 11, 1996, shortly after the operation, Dockery suddenly awoke and began to chatter nonstop. He remembered the names of family and friends, his pets, details of camping trips and the color of his car. Some doctors speculated he had been in a minimally conscious state, not a persistent vegetative state. Whatever his true condition had been, he fell silent again after 18 hours. He died on April 15, 1997, from a blood clot in his lung.

Patient file #6:

Schiavo,
Theresa
Marie
“
Terri
”
(1963-2005)
fell victim to cardio-respiratory arrest (causes unclear) in 1990. She was in a persistent vegetative state for fifteen years. Her husband and her parents waged a fierce legal battle with each other, with her husband claiming she would not have wanted the life-prolonging support. Michael Schiavo’s efforts eventually succeeded, and Terri Schiavo died after thirteen days without her feeding tube.

Patient file #7:

Von
Bulow,
Sunny
(1932-2008)
was an heiress and socialite who fell into a persistent vegetative state (causes unclear) in 1980. She stayed in it for almost twenty-eight years, until she died in a nursing home.

Patient file #8:

Englaro,
Eluana
(1970-2009)
was an Italian woman in a persistent vegetative state for seventeen years after a car accident. She became the intense focus of a battle between supporters and opponents of euthanasia, and was dubbed Italy’s “Terri Schiavo.” Her father fought a decade-long legal battle to let his daughter die per what he argued were her wishes. He and her friends testified in court, giving evidence she would not have wanted to artificially prolong her life. She died four days after the removal of life support.

Patient file #9:

Wallis,
Terry
(1964-alive
as
of
December
2012)
spent almost twenty years in a minimally conscious state before regaining awareness. In 2003, unexpectedly, he began to speak. He still lives with disabilities produced by the automobile accident that caused his condition and continues to receive extensive speech and physical therapy.

Patient file #10:

Sharon,
Ariel
(1928-alive
as
of
December
2012)
was Israel’s eleventh prime minister. He suffered a massive stroke on January 4, 2006, and remains in a persistent vegetative state. He has survived despite severe kidney and lung problems. In 2010, the formally robust, 255-pound Sharon weighed 110 pounds.