The family of a woman who was taken to hospital with a fractured leg and ended up in a coma has been granted judicial authorisation to turn off her life support.

Thirty-year-old Samantha D’Inca from the town of Feltre in the Italian region of Veneto fractured her femur in November last year (2020) and was subsequently operated on in hospital.

While recovering from the surgery at home, she began to feel ill with pain and swelling and had to return to hospital. Her condition worsened and she fell into a coma on 4th December.

It is not definitively known what caused D’Inca’s condition to deteriorate. However, a bacterial infection is suspected.

Since then, she has been on life support in an Extended Care Unit in the provincial capital of Belluno, with doctors informing the family she will never wake up again.

D’Inca did not leave behind an advance healthcare directive. However, she had reportedly repeatedly expressed her desire to avoid medical treatment that uselessly prolongs her life.

Her parents began a battle to legally end her life and on Wednesday, 10th November, the Court of Belluno is due to name her father as her medical support administrator.

This means that, in theory, he will be able to instruct the medical teams tending to D’Inca to interrupt her nutrition and hydration, resulting in her death.

Her parents, in the Italian news outlet Fanpage, were quoted as saying: “Even the Ethics Committee and the prosecutor of Belluno have given the green light. My daughter would never have wanted to live like this… They have finally believed in us and granted us this act of love.”

The coming days are expected to be D’Inca’s last.