Doctors Detach Feeding Tube of Woman in Coma

Doctors complied with a court ruling and disconnected the feeding tube of a comatose woman whose family claimed in a right-to-die controversy that she did not want to be kept alive by artificial means, officials said Thursday.

Marcia Gray, 49, of South Kingstown, hospitalized in a coma for nearly three years, is expected to die within 10 days, officials said. Gray suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in January, 1986, and has since been in what doctors have described as a “persistent vegetative state.”