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:
“Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“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)
“I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I’ll be all right; I’ve got a few veg.”
—Margaret Drabble (b. 1939)