A SPANISH cyclist who spent the last 24 years in a coma has died aged 42.
Raul Garcia Alvarez had been in a coma since a riding accident when he was a teenager.
The accident came shortly after he had signed for professional cycling team Venta Magullo-B Melero.
Alvarez was just 17-years-old at the time.
He was riding for the team in mountains near Madrid when he fell while travelling at 50mph.
Reports claim Alvarez careered off the track and fell five metres down an embankment.
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He suffered severe head trauma, chest trauma and a deep cut to his leg.
Alvarez underwent a four-and-a-half hour operation after being airlifted to hospital in Madrid, but he fell into an irreversible coma.
The cyclist from Villacastin, near Madrid, spent a year in hospital before being taken home and has been cared for by his family ever since.
Alvarez's brother told Valladolid-based newspaper El Norte de Castilla after his death: "We were with him until the last moment, and it has been hard, but he rests in peace.
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"Not even the doctors themselves thought he could live so many years.
"I believe that, if he has lived so long, it has been because of my mother's care, because she has been watching over him 24 hours a day."
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