Nation : Mother of Man in Coma Four Years Pulls Plug Over Protest of Attacker
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PORTLAND, Me. — The mother of a stabbing victim removed her son’s life-support system at 12:01 a.m. today over the objections of the assailant, who fears that he will be charged with murder.
Sylvia Lane withdrew her son Mark Weaver’s feeding tube at the earliest time that it was legal to do so and before leaving for her job on the early morning shift at a nursing home. A probate judge on Feb. 27 gave her permission beginning today.
The feeding tube has kept her son alive nearly four years. Lane said doctors believe that Weaver, 26, will die in a week or two.
Only then will prosecutors say whether they will file a murder charge against Noel Pagan, who served three years in prison for aggravated assault on Weaver. A judge this week refused to allow Pagan to intervene in the case.
Doctors said Weaver has no prospect of recovery from a “persistent vegetative state” caused by stab wounds to the neck that deprived his brain of oxygen.
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