LONDON – Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz has slipped into a coma and is clinically dead nearly a week after a 14-hour-long back surgery in a hospital in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, a report says.
The Saudi king, who was taken to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a Riyadh hospital following his surgery, has gone into a coma and has been living with the help of a ventilator over the past two days, a Saudi journalist at the London-based Asharq Alawsat said.
According to medics of the hospital, the kings basic organs, particularly his heart, lungs and kidneys do not function and the doctors were forced to use electric shocks to stimulate his cardiac muscles several times.
The Saudi kings surgery aimed at correcting a ligamentary slackening in the upper back began on Saturday November 18 and ended at dawn on Sunday November 19.
The 89-year-old kings health has declined over the past few years, and he has been hospitalized several times.
In October 2011, Abdullah underwent a similar operation to tighten ligaments around his third vertebra.
In 2010, he had two rounds of back surgery in the United States after suffering a herniated disc.
Failing health, old age as well as the deaths of the kings half-brothers have raised concerns about the future of the oil-rich country in the face of anti-government demonstrations.
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