source: www.guardian.co.uk

Josef Fritzl case: doctors attempt to bring daughter out of coma

• Kate Connolly in Berlin and Haroon Siddique
• guardian.co.uk,
• Tuesday May 27 2008
• Article history

An aerial view of the building in Amstetten where Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter for 24 years in a windowless basement cell and fathered seven children with her. Photograph: AP

Doctors treating Kerstin Fritzl, the offspring of Josef Fritzl and the daughter he imprisoned for 24 years, have started attempts to bring her out of an artificially induced coma.

The 19-year-old has been in hospital in Amstetten, Austria since April 19 when she was left there with a life-threatening condition – leading to the unravelling of Josef Fritzl’s shocking crimes against his family.

The 73-year-old has admitted imprisoning his daughter Elizabeth in a cellar below his house and fathering seven children with her. One of the children died shortly after birth.

The details of Kerstin’s illness have not been revealed but she reportedly suffered a multiple organ failure. She was put in a coma to stabilise her condition and allow her time to recover.

Doctors are now beginning to reduce the amount of medication being administered so she will come out of the coma gradually, the Austrian press reported today.

The clinic’s director, Dr Albert Reiter, said he could not tell how long it would take for her to become conscious again.

The five other surviving children are staying with their mother at the Amstetten-Mauer psychiatric clinic.

Before being freed, Stefan, 18, and Felix, five, had spent their entire lives in the basement with Kerstin and Elizabeth. Fritzl took Alexander, 12, Monika, 14 and Lisa, 15, into the family house to live with him and his wife Rosemarie while they were still babies.

He claimed they had been left on the doorstep by Elisabeth, who, he claimed, had left home to join a cult in 1984.

Fritzl appeared in court last month and was remanded in custody until June 9.
He has admitted burning the dead body of one of the children he fathered with Elisabeth, in 1996.

Prosecutors are deciding whether there is enough evidence to charge Fritzl with “murder through failure to act” or manslaughter for not calling medical help for the child.