Eluana Englaro

Eluana Englaro was an Italian woman from Lecco who entered a persistent vegetative state on 18 January 1992, following a car accident, and subsequently became the focus of a court battle between supporters and opponents of euthanasia. Shortly after her accident, medical staff began providing nutrition to Englaro with a feeding tube, but her father "fought to have her feeding tube removed", saying it would be a dignified end to his daughter's life. He said that before the crash, his daughter visited a friend who was in a coma and told him she didn't want the same thing to happen to her if she were ever in the same state." The authorities refused his request, but the decision was reversed in 2009, and she died after her nutrition was withheld after she had spent seventeen years in the persistent vegetative state.