"The autopsy released Wednesday on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding she was severely and irreversibly brain-damaged and blind as well. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused before she collapsed.
...
The autopsy showed that Schiavo's brain had shrunk to about half the normal size for a woman her age and that it bore signs of severe damage.

'This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons,' said Pinellas-Pasco County Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin, who led the autopsy team. He also said she was blind, because the 'vision centers of her brain were dead.'"

"Experts said that the autopsy demonstrates how difficult it is for people to recover from severe brain damage.

'People should understand that sometimes, for known or unknown reasons, individuals sustain massive brain injury that for which healing is not possible,' said Dr. Karen Weidenheim, the chief of neuropathology at Montefiore Medical Center in New York."