An investigation has been launched into the death of an American woman who was the first person to use the controversial Sarco suicide pod since its inauguration in July.
Officially, she died from nitrogen asphyxiation, however, prosecutors in the canton of Schaffhausen, where she died on September 23rd, are investigating the death. Swiss media has reported that she may have been killed by strangulation instead.
Florian Willet, an attorney for the assisted dying organisation The Last Resort, who was the only one present on site at the time of death, is being detained by police pending further investigation.
A police statement said that: "The public prosecutor's office in the canton of Schaffhausen has opened criminal proceedings against several people for incitement and aiding suicide, and several people have been taken into custody."
Marks on the victim’s neck
The woman, of whom nothing is known except her nationality and age (64), reportedly opted to die in the Sarco, a device that can be transported to any outdoor setting of the client’s choosing.
She wanted to die in a forest, so the capsule was taken to a site in Schaffhausen and placed under a tree — even though the canton banned the use of the device on its territory.
According to initial reports, the woman willingly caused her own death by triggering a button inside the capsule, which filled the pod with nitrogen, inducing her death by cutting oxygen supply.
The Last Resort, an assisted suicide organisation that owns Sarco, said the woman passed away quickly, peacefully, and pain-free.
However, authorities reportedly became suspicious when the autopsy revealed unexplained marks on the victim’s neck, which pointed to possible strangulation as the cause of death.
Did Sarco fail?
According to media reports on Tuesday, one theory is that Willet may have strangled the woman with his own hands because the Sarco capsule did not work as expected.
Even though the actual event was filmed —a common practice among Switzerland’s assisted dying organisations to prove that the person took their own life willingly — there are reportedly unexplained gaps in the recording.
The Last Resort has denied that Willet strangled the woman, saying that she suffered from osteomyelitis — an infection of the bone marrow at the base of the skull — which caused the marks.
Could Switzerland’s assisted dying laws be tightened after this incident?
While this new twist brings a new dimension to the issue of assisted suicide, it doesn’t mean that it will lead to significant revisions of the current legislation.
It is not the concept of assisted death per se that is likely to come under fire, but Sarco capsule itself.
It has been raising a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland, where active euthanasia is banned but assisted dying has been legal for decades.
Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider said that the way the capsule functions — that is, by filling the pod with poisonous nitrogen gas — does not comply with the existing legislation or the approved methods used by the country’s other assisted dying organisations.
Most commonly, it is via the intravenous perfusion activated by the patient, or drinking the lethal solution through a straw.
READ ALSO: What methods of assisted dying are legal in Switzerland?
The most likely outcome of the investigation is that — regardless of whether any charges are brought or not — Sarco will be outlawed.
The core laws, however, will likely remain as they are now.
READ ALSO: What you should know about assisted dying in Switzerland
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