Collapse
In April 1975, shortly after she turned 21, Karen Ann left her parents' home and moved with two roommates into a house a few miles away. Around the same time, she went on a radical diet, reportedly in order to fit into a dress that she had bought. She weighed 115 pounds (52 kg) when admitted to the hospital.
On April 15, 1975, a few days after moving into her new house, Quinlan attended a friend's birthday party at a local bar. She had eaten almost nothing for two days. At the party she reportedly drank a few gin and tonics and took Valium. Shortly afterwards she felt faint, and was quickly taken home and put to bed. When friends checked on her about fifteen minutes later, they found she was not breathing.
An ambulance was called and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was attempted. Eventually some color returned to her pallid skin, but she did not regain consciousness.
Quinlan was admitted to Newton Memorial Hospital in New Jersey in a coma. She remained there for nine days in an unresponsive condition before being transferred to St Clare's Hospital, a larger facility.
Read more about this topic: Karen Ann Quinlan
Famous quotes containing the word collapse:
“At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are loaded down with curses.”
—Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919)
“Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The world was a huge ball then, the universe a might harmony of ellipses, everything moved mysteriously, incalculable distances through the ether.
We used to feel the awe of the distant stars upon us. All that led to was the eighty-eight naval guns, ersatz, and the night air-raids over cities. A magnificent spectacle.
After the collapse of the socialist dream, I came to America.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)