Gary Coleman's ex-wife Shannon Price is defending her decision to take him off life support after he suffered a brain hemorrhage last week.
"The doctors told us that even if they had done surgery on him, he would've died," she says in a video posted on TMZ.com. "He would've bled to death during the surgery. Even if they did take a chunk out of his brain, he would not be the same. He'd basically be like Muhammad Ali … I mean, Gary was gone."
Despite divorcing in 2008, Coleman, 42, gave written permission for Price to make decisions regarding his medical condition. (His parents are seeking custody of his body and want it returned to the star's boyhood home in Illinois.)
When it came to making a decision, Price said she thought of Terri Schiavo, the highly publicized Florida right-to-life case.
"I don't want people to be so hard on me thinking I had to pull the plug too early," said Price. "He wouldn't have made it anyway. His heart would've just given out. I don't want people to sit there and think I'm a bitch, and that I didn't care about him."
She also denied that she played a role in his fatal fall at his Utah home.
"A lot of people sit there and say, yeah, she pushed him," she said. "People are so cruel, they don't even know. I was upstairs, he was downstairs. How am I going to push him? Why would I want to hurt my husband, are you kidding?
