IN A tragic echo of Romeo and Juliet, an Italian woman has awoken from a four-month coma only hours after her husband killed himself believing that she would never regain consciousness.

Since September Ettore Benvegnù, 71, had kept vigil at the bedside of his wife, Rossana Bianchetto, 67, after she suffered a severe stroke.

Late last week Signor Benvegnù finally abandoned hope. He went into the garage of their house and hanged himself, leaving the car exhaust running to make sure he died.

He left notes explaining that he was putting an end to his life because he could not bear to live without his wife. Eleven hours later Rossana opened her eyes. Her first words were “Ettore, where are you?”, according to hospital staff.

She was not told of his suicide. Relatives who rushed to the Padua hospital when Rossana regained consciousness said that they had “not had the courage” to tell her the truth.

She has since lost consciousness a second time, according to Giampiero Giron, the surgeon in charge of intensive care, and it is not clear whether she will emerge from the coma again.

Doctors said that Rossana had undergone two neuro-surgery operations since falling into a coma in September and had taken a turn for the worse after an operation a week ago.

“Ettore came to the hospital four times a day,” a doctor at the hospital said. “He would just sit there talking to her, saying Rossana, can you hear me? He was absolutely devoted”.

Don Giuseppe, the parish priest, said that he had spoken to Signor Benvegnù and “he seemed very pessimistic . . . I tried to console him and give him hope”. The newspaper Il Giornale said that he had killed himself “to join her in the afterlife, but now it is he who is waiting for her on the other side”.

Padua is 40 miles from Verona, the setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, where the supposed tomb of Juliet is shown to tourists together with her balcony and Romeo’s house.

In the play Juliet drinks a potion supplied by a well-meaning Franciscan, Friar Lawrence, to appear dead as part of a plan to elope with Romeo.

Unaware of the subterfuge, Romeo believes she really has died and kills himself in despair. When Juliet wakes up she sees that Romeo is dead and stabs herself.

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