A 64-year-old US woman this week became the first person to use a “suicide pod” to end her life — and several people have been detained in Switzerland over the death.
The woman, a Midwesterner who was not named publicly, died Monday afternoon in the portable, 3D-printed chamber called a Sarco, short for “sarcophagus” — and dubbed the “Tesla of euthanasia” — near the Swiss-German border, according to the assisted-suicide group Exit International.
The woman suffered from “severe immune compromise,” the group said.
Switzerland is one of the few countries where foreigners can travel to legally end their lives through assisted suicide, which must not involve a doctor but can include outside help.
But Swiss officials said the controversial pod — which floods its chamber with nitrogen, causing the user’s oxygen levels to plummet to deadly levels — has not yet been approved for use.
Florian Willet, the co-president of Exit International’s Swiss affiliate, the Last Resort, was the only witness to the woman’s death, which he described as “peaceful, fast and dignified,” the organization said.
The incident supposedly took place near a forest cabin in Merishausen, the regional police said.
Cops in northern Switzerland announced Tuesday that “several people” were taken into custody in connection to the death.
Prosecutors were reportedly tipped off to the woman’s suicide by a law firm. The arrested individuals are under investigation for alleged incitement and accessory to suicide.
A photographer with the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant was among those arrested, the outlet said Tuesday.
The photographer was to take pictures of the use of the suicide pod.
A person inside the pod can lose consciousness once it is activated and die within about 10 minutes.
The pod is activated from the inside and has an emergency exit button.
Exit International director Dr. Philip Nitschke said Tuesday 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.”
Nitschke previously said that lawyers in Switzerland advised that the device would be considered legal in the country.
Then Monday, Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider suggested the capsule would not be legal.
“It does not fulfill the demands of the product safety law, and as such, must not be brought into circulation,” she said.
In addition, “the corresponding use of nitrogen is not compatible with the article on purpose in the chemicals law.”
In July, the Swiss newspaper Blick obtained a letter from Public Prosecutor Peter Sticher warning that operators of the Sarco pod could face “serious consequences.”
“There is no reliable information about the method of killing,” Sticher told the outlet. “[It is] completely unclear who has control over which mechanical process during the dying process.”
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland as long as the person takes their life without “external assistance” from a doctor and those who help them to die do not do so for a “self-serving motive.”
Unlike the Netherlands, where Exit International is based, Swiss law still strictly forbids the practice of euthanasia, which is different because it must involve a medical professional such as a doctor.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the 988 Suicide Crisis Lifeline at 988 or visit 988Lifeline.org.
With Post wires