PARIS (Reuters) - A Frenchman with quadruple paralysis who was in a coma died on Tuesday after doctors finished his treatment, lawyers said, and the man was at the center of a 10-year court dispute to keep him on rations.
The doctors, who are relatives of the man, said doctors on July 2 stopped feeding and injecting devices that kept Vinson Lambert alive since he was injured in a motorcycle accident in 2008. He recalled that he had given up the spirit at 8.25 am (0625 GMT).
Doctors at the hospital in Rams, northeastern France, applied for a final verdict by the Court of Cassation, the country's highest court.
The fate of the 42-year-old former nurse has divided his family and sparked a heated debate in the country over the right to die. Euthanasia is illegal in France, but the law allows doctors to anesthetize patients with incurable diseases to death.
Lambert's wife and some of his brothers wanted to separate the rations, but his parents, with the support of other relatives, ran a series of legal endeavors to force doctors to keep him alive.
The parents say their son was not suffering from a terminal illness. Lambert had almost no consciousness, but he was able to breathe without a respirator and sometimes he would move his eyes.