Man confirms his wife has died after spending 31 years in a coma
A woman who had been in a coma for the past 31 years has died, her husband has confirmed.
In 1991, Miriam Visintin crashed her car into a pole after losing control on the icy ground on Christmas Eve in Casoni di Mussolente, Veneto, Italy.
She was then taken to hospital where her husband, Angelo Farina, learnt she had suffered inoperable brain injury.
Doctors said she wouldn't likely survive the night, but she remained in a coma for three decades.
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Angelo, who Miriam was married to 33 years, confirmed that she had died of a cardiac arrest in hospital on 10 May, more than 31 years after the crash.
She had recently been moved to San Bassiano hospital due to a buildup of fluid in her lungs.
Her husband said: "She finally had peace for her injustice... Finally she's up there in peace and in paradise."
He continued: "We had only been married a year and a half when tragedy struck. We were so young and had so many projects... fate has been cruel to her.
"She didn't deserve all of this."
After his wife's accident, Angelo built a life with another woman, however, his devotion to her never wavered.
He told La Repubblica that he visited her for 'at least 15 minutes' during his lunch break.
"Sometimes I managed to go even in the evening," he said. "If I went back, I would do it all over again."
Angelo would keep her up to date on 'the events of the day'; the things he would have told her if he'd 'found her in the living room' when coming home.
After her funeral on Saturday (13 May), he told the newspaper: "When I married her I swore to stand by her through thick and thin.
"I decided right away to stay there next to her, forever, until the last of her days."
He added: "It was very difficult. Not an easy situation to accept. I had so much anger inside. Such a beautiful, good and special girl shouldn't have ended that way."
In Miriam's hometown, the mayor of Cassola left a tribute which touched on her husband's display of devotion, which read: "What struck me a lot, in addition to the tragedy of a vegetative life that lasted 31 years, is the closeness of her husband, perpetuated in daily gestures of love for so long.
"In a very self-centered world, this example gives reason to believe that humanity still exists."
Amelia Jones