Aruna Shanbaug, in coma for 42 years, dies

MUMBAI: Aruna Shanbaug, the former KEM Hospital nurse who has been lying in a vegetative state for the past 40 years, passed away at 9.40am on Monday. Doctors at KEM Hospital said that she had been fighting pneumonia for the last six days. Shanbaug, 67, was taken to the medical intensive care unit (MICU) of the Parel hospital after she developed breathing difficulty. A pall of gloom descended on the hospital as the news broke out. Nurses were hopeful that she would fight the ailment just like 2013 and come out in time for her 68th birthday on the first week of June. after being diagnosed with pneumatic patch. A room outside the ward 4 had been home to her since she was rendered paralysed in 1973. Shanbaug was brutally assaulted by sweeper Sohanlal Bartha Valmiki. To pin her down during the act, Valmiki used a dog chain around her neck and almost strangulated her, causing serious damage to her brain cells and reducing her to a vegetative state. Since then, the hospital nurses have taken it upon themselves to attend to her every need. They had also vehemently fought for her right to live after a euthanasia plea was filed in Supreme Court.   TOI