Spanish man dies after being in coma for 23 years

A Spanish man in a coma for 23 years, has died, just over a year after his family finally won compensation following decades of litigation over the operation that left him in a vegetative state.

In 2009 Mr Meno's family began to camp outside the ministry in protest when the legal authorities threatened to seize their apartment to pay court costs

Antonio Meno had been in a vegetative state since cosmetic surgery on his nose in 1989 when he was 21.

"He died on Sunday," Luis Bertelli, one of the family's lawyers, told the AFP news agency.

The family charged that the anaesthetist at the operation had been negligent and he was found guilty of "imprudence" by a Madrid court. But the finding was overturned on appeal and the anaesthetist was cleared in all the subsequent legal proceedings brought by the young man's parents, who are retired bakers.

In 2009 they began to camp outside the ministry in protest when the legal authorities threatened to seize their apartment to pay off 400,000 euros ($518,000) in court costs.

But evidence from a new witness, who was a medical student at the time and present at the operation, persuaded the country's Supreme Court to reopen the case in November 2010.

A process of arbitration between the two parties finally allowed the family to receive 1.075 million euros ($1.394 million) in compensation in July 2011.
Meno's mother Juan Ortega said then that it "doesn't end as I wanted, but I have no strength left, I can't go on."

On Tuesday, Bertelli said: "It is the victim of an injustice who has died," accusing the courts of having taken too long to hand out justice.

"It is many years of waiting and anguish for a mother," he said. She had lived "permanently attached to the foot of a bed because she was not given the compensation which would have allowed her to employ nurses."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/9643910/Spanish-man-dies-after-being-in-coma-for-23-years.html

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"It is many years of waiting and anguish for a mother," he said. She had lived "permanently attached to the foot of a bed because she was not given the compensation which would have allowed her to employ nurses."

Wow...Nothing is stronger than a mother's love!

Just had a thought: in that time spent in the coma, he's out lived millions of people within that 23 year span...

But anyway, God bless his family for holding on for so long. I am sure he "felt" their love.
May he rest in peace.