The Sarco suicide pod has been used for the first time, its creators have confirmed, with an American woman aged 64 believed to be the first person to have died in the device ‘under a canopy of trees’ in Switzerland.
Police in northern Switzerland said that several people were detained on Monday, and that prosecutors had opened an investigation on suspicion of incitement and accessory to suicide.
The ‘Sarco’ suicide capsule is designed to allow a person inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber, according to its creators. The person is then supposed to fall asleep and die by suffocation in a few minutes.
A law firm informed prosecutors in Schaffhausen canton that an assisted suicide involving use of the Sarco capsule had taken place Monday near a woodland cabin in Merishausen, police said.
The woman who died in the capsule had reportedly been suffering with ‘a very serious illness that involves severe pain’ and had wished to die for ‘at least two years’.
The Last Resort, the Swiss firm behind the Sarco, said in a statement: ‘On Monday 23 September, at approximately 16.01 CEST, a 64-year old woman from the the mid-west in the USA died using the Sarco device.’
It said the co-president of the organisation, Florian Willet, was the sole person present for the death, contrary to police reports.
Dutch newspaper Volkskrant has reported that police detained one of its photographers who wanted to take pictures of the use of the Sarco.
It said Schaffhausen police had indicated the photographer was being held at a police station but declined to give a further explanation.
According to Last Resort, Willet said the woman’s death had been ‘peaceful, fast and dignified’, taking place ‘under a canopy of trees, at a private forest retreat in the Canton of Schaffhausen close to the Swiss-German border.’
The organisation said the woman ‘had been suffering for many years from a number of serious problems associated with severe immune compromise.’
The inventor of the Sarco, Philip Nitschke, said his device ‘had performed exactly as it had been designed to do,’ saying it had provided a ‘non-drug, peaceful death at the time of the person’s choosing’.
Police, including forensics teams, swooped on the scene after being notified by a legal firm that an assisted suicide with the device had taken place.
