In the Nicholas Sparks adaptation The Choice, Travis must decide to take his wife Gabby off life support or wait for her to wake up from a coma.

The Nicholas Sparks movie The Choice features one of the bestselling author's most intense storylines to date in which Travis (Benjamin Walker) must choose to take his wife Gabby (Teresa Palmer) off life support when she is in a coma. Released in 2016, The Choice is the most recent novel by Sparks to be adapted into a movie. There are multiple cheesy and romantic storylines in Sparks adaptations that use medical plot devices to keep a couple apart or bring them closer together. The Choice stands out because the main character is given the responsibility of making medical decisions about their loved one instead of being helpless.

Like the best Sparks movies, the first half of The Choice follows Gabby and Travis falling in love. After marrying and having children together, Gabby is in a car accident. This results in her falling into a coma for an extended period of time. As her husband, it is up to Travis to decide if Gabby should be taken off life support after a certain period of time has passed. Because The Choice is a romance film, Travis' dilemma is framed as whether he is strong enough to let Gabby go or if his love for Gabby is strong enough to leave her life up to fate.

Gabby Was In A Coma For Over Three Months

Before Gabby's car accident in The Choice, she and Travis mutually decide that if anything happens to them later in life, they do not want to be kept on life support for months to years. After Gabby is in a coma for several weeks, Dr. Ryan McCarthy (Tom Welling) informs Travis that if Gabby does not wake up from her coma within 90 days then Travis should take her off of life support. Gabby wakes up from her coma shortly after the 90-day mark passes, so it can be inferred that she is in a coma for over three months.

The Choice does not specify exactly how many days Gabby was in a coma. Instead, the film provides context clues When Gabby has been in a coma for 90 days, Travis does not sign the Do Not Resuscitate form. He discusses this decision with his sister Stephanie (Maggie Grace) who is in the final stages of pregnancy. When Gabby returns home, Stephanie has a newborn baby. Coma patients typically require weeks of physical therapy to learn how to walk again. Since Gabby meets Stephanie's child as a newborn, Gabby must have woken up only a few days after the 90-day mark was reached.

Does Gabby Die In The Choice?

The Choice ends with Gabby returning home to her family completely healed by her accident. Dr. McCarthy told Travis that once a patient is in a coma for 90 days, the chance of them waking up is less than 1%. Despite these odds, Gabby does not die and wakes up after being in a coma over three months. Gabby's recovery is rare for a sob-inducing Sparks adaptation, as the author is known to kill off main characters. Some viewers might interpret the ending of The Choice as a wish-fulfillment fantasy by Travis or Gabby. However, the source material is clear that Gabby wakes up from the coma.