A capsule-like device that allows users to commit suicide has been used for the first time in the canton of Schaffhausen, in northern Switzerland on the border with Germany. Police said in a statement that prosecutors have launched an investigation into a number of suspects for “inciting and assisting suicide”.
RELEASES NITROGEN GAS
The police announced that the assisted suicide using a “suicide capsule” took place yesterday in a forest hut in the municipality of Merishausen in the canton of Schaffhausen.
The suicide capsule called “Sarco”, which was produced with a 3D printer and has never been used before, starts releasing nitrogen gas into the air when the person sitting inside presses a button. In this way, the oxygen in the air drops to lethal levels, and the user sitting in the capsule loses consciousness and suffocates to death within minutes.
A spokesperson for The Last Resort, the group behind the suicide pod attempt, said the person using the pod was a 64-year-old American woman who suffers from a severely weakened immune system.
“PEACEFUL, FAST AND HONORABLE”
A spokesperson for the Swiss-based organization, which advocates that “death is a human right,” announced that those arrested by the police were The Last Resort Vice President Florian Willet, a Dutch journalist and two Swiss nationals. The Dutch newspaper Volkskrant also reported that one of the Swiss police’s photographers who wanted to take photos of the Sarco device being used was detained.
A spokeswoman for The Last Resort said Willet was the only person with the American woman when she used the suicide capsule. The spokeswoman added that the American woman had undergone a full psychiatric evaluation before taking her own life.
The statement released by The Last Resort included Willet’s statements, stating that the American woman’s death was “peaceful, swift and honorable.”
Sarco was developed by former Austrian physician Philip Nitschke, who is famous for his work on suicide, with expert support since the 1990s. The fact that the device can be produced with a 3D printer raises concerns about its use by children and the mentally ill.
Source: UAV