The first person to use a controversial new ‘suicide pod’ pressed the button “almost immediately,” according to its creator.
Police in northern Switzerland said Tuesday that several people have been detained and a criminal case opened in connection with the suspected death of a person in a new “suicide capsule.”
The “Sarco” capsule, which has never been used before, is designed to allow a person sitting in a reclining seat inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber.
The person is then supposed to fall asleep and die by suffocation in a few minutes, which is allegedly what happened to the first user, an American mother-of-two from the mid-west.
After entering the machine, the person inside hears a voice say: “If you want to die, press this button.”
“It looked exactly as we expected it to look. My guess is that she lost consciousness within two minutes and that she died after five minutes,’ Dr Philip Nitschke, the pod’s inventor, told Dutch media.
Prosecutors in Schaffhausen canton were informed by a law firm that an “assisted suicide” involving the Sarco had taken place Monday near a forest cabin in Merishausen, regional police said in a statement.
They said “several people” were taken into custody and prosecutors opened an investigation on suspicion of incitement and accessory to suicide.
Swiss law allows assisted suicide so long as the person takes his or her life with no “external assistance” and those who help the person die do not do so for “any self-serving motive,” according to a government website.
Unlike some other countries, including the Netherlands, Switzerland does not allow euthanasia, which involves healthcare practitioners killing patients with a lethal injection at their request and in specific circumstances.
Switzerland is among the only countries in the world where foreigners can travel to legally end their lives and has several organisations that are dedicated to helping people kill themselves.
In a statement, the group said a 64-year-old woman from the US Midwest – it did not specify further – who had suffered from “severe immune compromise” had died Monday afternoon near the German border using the Sarco device.
It said Florian Willet, co-president of The Last Resort, a Swiss affiliate of Exit International, was the only person present and described her death as “peaceful, fast and dignified.”
Dr. Philip Nitschke, an Australian-born trained doctor behind Exit International, has previously told the AP that his organization received advice from lawyers in Switzerland that the use of the Sarco would be legal in the country.
In the Exit International statement on Tuesday, Nitschke said he was “pleased that the Sarco had performed exactly as it had been designed … to provide an elective, non-drug, peaceful death at the time of the person’s choosing.”
The Samaritans can be reached round the clock, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
If you need a response immediately, it’s best to call them on the phone. You can reach them by calling 116 123, by emailing [email protected] or by visiting www.samaritans.org.
*If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the US is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
The Swiss government refers queries about suicide prevention to a group called “Dargebotene Hand,” or The Offered Hand.
