Nurses bid emotional goodbye to Aruna Shanbaug after 42-year-long ordeal

A Mumbai nurse who was in a vegetative state for 42 years after being sexually assaulted while working in a hospital has died, authorities said Monday. Shanbaug was diagnosed with pneumonia last week and was on a life support system for the past few days, officials at Mumbai's King Edward Memorial Hospital said. Shanbaug's case sparked a debate over India's euthanasia laws after a Mumbai-based author and friend of the nurse petitioned the courts to stop force-feeding her through a tube so her suffering would not be prolonged. The petition was opposed by nurses at the hospital, who took turns caring for her for more than four decades after Shanbaug's family said they were unable to support her. Aruna Shanbaug, 67, suffered severe brain damage when she was sodomised and strangled with a metal chain by a hospital worker in 1973.