Mumbai: The world’s oldest comatose patient, nurse Aruna Shanbaug who had been in a vegetative state ever since she was raped and choked with a dog leash, died in Mumbai’s KEM Hospital on Monday morning after remaining in coma for almost 42 years, the hospital dean Dr Avinash Supe said.
She was in her early 60s and was deserted by most of her relatives during her lifetime. She was looked after with dedication by nurses of the hospital, where she lay in Ward No. 4A.
Since nearly a week, Shanbaug suffered from pneumonia and related ailments. As she found it difficult to breathe, she was put on a ventilator and was responding to the treatment.
Hailing from Haldipur, North Kanara in Karnataka, she died around 8.30 a.m., plunging the entire hospital into a pall of gloom, especially the nursing staff who idolized her.
