If I may, I’d like to point out that the two sides of argument about the Guiness Book of World Records are one and the same. No, Guiness does not record Choni Ham’agel or Krias Yam Suf or Og Melech Haboshon, etc. That is because it has criteria for what events are recorded. Those criteria protect the integrity of the information contained in the book. Robert Wadlow (at nearly 9 feet) is the world’s tallest man ON RECORD. There is no dispute even amongst the staff of Guiness that these records may have been exceeded at some point in time but such an occurance never took place in accordance with their criteria.
When you hear on the news that today’s temperature is a “record high”, do you start calling the newscaster a “koifer” because the mai mabul were boiling hot and the temperature was likely over 200 degrees at that time? No, because you understand that the “record” is just that – a database of recorded information. Temperatures before a certain date were not recorded and are therefore not included in the record.
If an individual had been kept alive in a coma for 73 years IN RECENT HISTORY, it is very unlikely that it would not be recorded. Let me put that another way. If you want to tell a story that happened in the last hundred years or so, you’d better make sure that credible facts back it up. Of course, the story could have happened 500 years ago, but then earlier Gedolim could have remarked on it.