On January 11, 1983, then-25-year-old Nancy Cruzan (born July 20, 1957) lost control of her car while driving at nighttime near Carthage, Missouri. She was thrown from the vehicle and landed face-down in a water-filled ditch. [1] Paramedics found her with no vital signs but resuscitated her.

The case of Nancy Cruzan goes far deeper than the reach of constitutional and legal precedent. If we deny that, we freeze the ability of courts to face new and profoundly human problems.

Jan 11, 1983 · The case of Nancy Cruzan, a 25-year-old woman whose injuries from an automobile accident resulted in a persistent vegetative state, helped to empower people with end-of-life choices.

Petitioner Nancy Cruzan is incompetent, having sustained severe injuries in an automobile accident, and now lies in a Missouri state hospital in what is referred to as a persistent vegetative state: generally, a condition in which a person exhibits motor reflexes but evinces no indications of significant cognitive function.

In 1983, Nancy Beth Cruzan was involved in an automobile accident which left her in a "persistent vegetative state." She was sustained for several weeks by artificial feedings through an implanted gastronomy tube.

Dec 27, 1990 · Eight years after the auto crash that left her in a vegetative state, six months after the United States Supreme Court's ruling on her right to die and 12 days after her parents won their fight to...

Dec 27, 1990 · Nancy Cruzan, a 33-year-old automobile crash victim who remained comatose for nearly eight years as a landmark right-to-die case involving her went all the way to the U.S. Supreme...

Copetitioners Lester and Joyce Cruzan, Nancy's parents and coguardians, sought a court order directing the withdrawal of their daughter's artificial feeding and hydration equipment after it became apparent that she had virtually no chance of recovering her cognitive faculties.

Sep 6, 1990 · The New Jersey Supreme Court, in a landmark, unanimous decision, authorized the removal on the basis of Quinlan's constitutional right of privacy, which the court concluded would be lost unless her...

Dec 26, 2015 · Cruzan was 25 when a car wreck threw her face-down in a ditch, deprived of oxygen for more than 12 minutes. She was resuscitated but left in a “persistent vegetative state” and deemed never...