Despite aggressive chelation therapy, her condition rapidly deteriorated and three weeks after first symptoms appeared she fell into a coma described by one of

Despite aggressive chelation therapy, her condition rapidly deteriorated and three weeks after first symptoms appeared she fell into a coma described by one of her former students as not being "... the kind of coma I'd expected... She was thrashing about. Her husband saw tears rolling down her face. I asked if she was in pain. The doctors said it didn't appear that her brain could even register pain." Wetterhahn died a few months later, less than a year after her initial exposure.