41 - Karen Ann Quinlan

Do you remember who Karen Ann Quinlan was?

If you are, like me, for a certain age, then you will remember that Karen was a young American woman who, back in 1972, then aged just 22 years lapsed into a coma brought on by a drug and alcohol overdose.

Karen Ann Quinlan (1954 – 1985)

She had gone on a crash diet and to help with this she was taking Valium, doctor or self-prescribed we are not told, and alcohol, while celebrating a friend's birthday party. Not feeling very well, she retired to a bedroom and, a few hours later, her friends, on finding her, were unable to waken her up.

In hospital she lapsed into a coma and respiratory failure. She was dying. She was placed on a respirator and fed through a nasogastric tube. She remained in a Persistent Vegetative State for almost nine years.

Karen's parents asked that her respirator be turned off. They were threatened by the State that if this were done, they the parents, would be charged with manslaughter.

A legal battle ensued that got world attention at the time. The parents won and, to everyone's great surprise, Karen kept breathing on her own. Eventually, the poor woman died aged 31 and she became the first celebrated Right to Die case.

Since then, we have had the Hillsborough disaster, where Tony Bland was allowed to die and our own Irish Right to Die case in 1995. I have published a novel based on this terribly tragic case. It is called The Foxhunter.