Woman Paralyzed by Wrong Injection Is Declared Dead : Woman Paralyzed by Injection Is Declared Dead

Lillian Cedeno, the 21-year-old woman who was paralyzed from the neck down because doctors wrongly injected her with a cancer-fighting drug, was declared dead Friday, hospital officials said.

Cedeno, who was pregnant when she entered Albany Medical Center Hospital for treatment of a cancer in facial bones, was officially declared dead 85 days after she was mistakenly injected, officials said.

She was injected on Feb. 27 with the drug vincristine in her spine, instead of intravenously, as the label on the drug indicated. Shortly after that, tests showed that she had no brain wave activity, doctors said.

The mistaken injection forced doctors to deliver her fetus by Caesarean section on March 16. The infant, a girl, died 24 days later of a heart attack.