Indian nurse who spent 42 years in coma after Mumbai rape dies

MUMBAI, May 18 (UPI) -- Aruna Shanbaug, an Indian nurse who was in a persistent vegetative state for 42 years after being raped and strangled with metal chains, died on Monday.

Shanbaug, 68, was attacked and brutally raped in November 1973 when she was 25 years old. She was attacked and left to die in the hospital where she worked by a ward contract sweeper in Mumbai.

She survived but was left paralyzed with severe brain damage, being force fed through her nose twice a day.

She developed pneumonia six days ago, according to BBC News.

"Ms. Shanbaug died at 08:30 a.m. on Monday," a a spokesman at Mumbai's KEM Hospital said where Shanbaug was staying said. "She was admitted to the intensive care unit and put on ventilator support."

KEM Hospital is Asia's largest public healthcare facility. Shanbaug stayed in Ward No. 4A.

Shanbaug's case erupted debates about India's laws on euthanasia. The country's Supreme Court rejected a plea allowing her to die.

Thousands of people have gone to the hospital to pay respects, where her body is being held for public viewing. Shanbaug was abandoned by most of her relatives during her lifetime.

Last rites were scheduled to be performed at about 4 p.m. after some controversy arose between two of Shanbaug's relatives and the nurses who cared for her.

Shanbaug's relatives wanted to perform the last rites, but nurses felt it was their right to do so because they cared for her for more than four decades. A compromise was made where both the relatives and nurses jointly performed the ceremony.