Shannon Price Explains Why She Took Gary Coleman Off Life Support

Over 10 years after actor Gary Coleman died, his ex-wife Shannon Price is breaking her silence over the controversial decision to take him off life support 13 days before he had stipulated in his will. Appearing in an emotional episode of A&E's Lie Detector: Truth or Deception, Price spoke about the ordeal of Coleman's final days in May of 2010.

The 42-year-old actor died after falling, which caused an intracranial hemorrhage and cardiac arrest. Despite having quietly divorced in 2008, the couple and Price stayed together, and Price was put in the horrible position of having to make a decision no one should ever have to make. It was Coleman's desire under his last will and testament that he receive life-sustaining treatment in the event of a severe medical condition for 15 days before permitting natural death. But now, after Price finally gave the OK to pull him off a respirator after only two days, the case is raising questions today and setting off a debate that shows no signs of waning.

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But when it comes to Price, it was not just a matter of simplicity or haste. "I had no choice," she said. "He had gone into cardiac arrest, and that is ultimately what took his life." She argued that she had done everything she could to keep him alive. "I go visit him, speak with the doctors, and they are like, 'Shannon, we do not think that he is going to make it.'" Price, now 39, said doctors delivered grim news about Coleman's condition and that continued medical treatment would likely be of no benefit. She says she ordered the hospital's staff to attempt resuscitation, hoping until the very end.

Made under intense emotional pressure, her choice upends what people think about the ability of patients to control how they die and, more broadly, the fraught and complex interplay between legal documents and real-time medical crises, say medical ethicists and lawyers who specialize in end-of-life issues. For Price, it was a decision rooted in love, not defiance. As "Lie Detector: Truth or Deception" begins its run, Price's frank recollection sheds a fresh light on an old scar, a scar born of pain, love, and a choice no one would ever want to make.