Known as America’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’, Edwarda O’Bara was a cheery high school student when suddenly her life took a tragic turn, and she fell into a four-decade coma as a teen – never to wake up.

Edwarda spent 42 years completely unconscious following a bout of flu. Never leaving her side, Edwarda’s family selflessly sacrificed their lives to tend to her every need.

The straight-A student lived a completely everyday life—she loved ponies, was inseparable from her younger sister Colleen, who was just 18 months her junior and did well at school.

Edwarda had been diagnosed with diabetes in late 1969 and was prescribed an oral insulin medication that was later banned due to its harmful side effects.

In the early hours of January 3 1970, she ‘woke up shaking and in great pain because the oral form of insulin she had been taking wasn’t reaching her bloodstream,’ according to her family.

“My sister was screaming,” Colleen, Edwards’s sister, recalled, according to The Sun. “I remember it like it was yesterday. My dad started rubbing her legs to try to get the sugar to flow. He picked her up, and we just rushed her to the hospital.”

Before she became comatose, she turned to her mother and pleaded with her to ‘promise … you won’t leave me.’

Tearful mum Kaye O’Bara assured her daughter: “Of course not. I would never leave you, darling”. The mother kept that promise, taking care of her daughter for 38 years until she died on March 7, 2008.

Kaye never slept for more than 90 minutes at a time so she could read to her daughter, play music, talk to her and turn her from side to side every two hours to help prevent bedsores.

Her father, Joe O’Bara, died in 1976 from a heart attack under the strain of working three jobs. When Kaye died, Edwarda’s sister Colleen quit her job to take her place as a full-time carer.

Colleen selflessly said: “I didn’t give it a second thought. She’s my sister. And I love her.”

Edwarda’s final birthday fell in April 2012, when she turned 59 and was sent messages from thousands of well-wishers.

Edwarda lived until the age of 59, when she died at home on November 21, 2012. She was buried alongside her mother and father.