Francisco Javier Martín succumbed yesterday to a road accident that occurred nearly ten years ago – all these years since he had remained only semi-conscious.
Francisco was a police officer belonging to the Granada Policía Local. He was returning from work on his motorbike when he came across a multi-vehicle pile up that he didn’t have time to manoeuvre around.
The immediate result was that he lost a leg although his head injuries would be what eventually killed him almost a decade later.
During the time that he was in this semiconscious state in hospital, he caught Covid twice resulting in losing one of his lungs and making the simple act of breathing a drain on his grip on life.
The last years of his life were in St. Raphael Hospitalwhich is one where patients from the main hospitals with no or little hope of recovery are sent – it’s a palliative-care hospice.
Yesterday, at the age of 52, he passed away leaving a desolate widow, Mari Gloria. They had known each other since childhood as they were both from Colomera and had began their relationship in their teens. They had been together, including those years in coma, 35 years.
Editorial comment: there are many stories of patients coming round out of a coma months or years later, but in the majority of cases, they’re a cruel interlude that eat through a fading hope, interspersed with brief moments of semi-lucidity.
(News: Colmera, Montes Orientales, Granada, Andalusia)