Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman in Florida who has been under spotlight in one of the fiercest life-and-death battles in the United States, died on Thursday, television reports said.

　　Schiavo, 41, died at the Pinellas Park hospice where she had been kept for alive by a feeding tube for years. The tube was removed 13 days ago following the ruling of the presiding judge over the case.

　　Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state since a sudden heart attack in 1990 which cut oxygen to her brain. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have engaged in a seven-year court battle with her husband and legal guardian Michael Schiavo over her fate.

　　Michael Schiavo has urged the removal of his wife's feeding tube, saying she would rather die in her condition. But the Schindlers insisted that their daughter be kept alive.

　　A US appeals court on Wednesday rejected the latest appeals by the Schindlers requesting a new hearing on whether to reconnect the feeding tube for their daughter, one of a string of legal setbacks the parents suffered during the last two weeks in both state and federal courts.