The inventor of the Sarco pod has revealed he is building a new device to carry out a second assisted suicide, as Swiss prosecutors continue to investigate the death of an American woman inside the nitrogen capsule.
Dr Philip Nitschke has vowed to print a new machine – made using a 3D printer – in the Netherlands to use in a country other than Switzerland, where prosecutors seized the original pod after its launch on September 23.
Nitschke’s associate Dr Florian Willet was arrested after cops swooped on the forest in the northern municipality of Merishausen, where a 64-year-old American woman was found dead inside the pod.
The Last Resort and Exit International – the organisations behind Sarco – have insisted that its first user voluntarily entered the pod and pushed a button to fill the chamber with nitrogen gas, triggering her own death.
But Chief Prosecutor Peter Sticher has since raised the suspicion of ‘intentional homicide’ after suggesting in court that the woman may have been strangled, Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reports.
Despite the ongoing probe, the confiscation of the Sarco, and with Willet still behind bars five weeks on, avid euthanasia advocate Nitschke has vowed to continue his work, and plans to help another person to die as soon as possible.
Dr Philip Nitschke (pictured with a prototype) has vowed to print a new machine – made using a 3D printer – in the Netherlands to use in a country other than Switzerland
The first use of Sarco capsule took place in the middle of the forest in northern Switzerland
The Australian former GP is based in the Netherlands with his wife and fellow campaigner Dr Fiona Stewart, and heads up the euthanasia group Exit International, which he founded.
Their offices in Haarlem and Amsterdam were raided by Dutch cops in a joint operation with Swiss authorities after the launch of the Sarco, with laptops and a prototype of the capsule confiscated.
‘We haven’t actually got any device to use now, so while I’m here in the Netherlands – and I’m here for the foreseeable future – we have started to print another one,’ Nitschke said in a YouTube video this week.
‘As soon as we get that printed I guess we’ll be able to plan some form of use of the device and we’ve got several strategies that we’re looking at in detail that don’t involve the uncertainty of Switzerland.’
Nitschke said he chose Switzerland as the location for the launch of Sarco because it was the only country in the world where individuals have a right to receive assistance to end their life.
Swiss law also does not require a doctor to carry out the procedure, with assisting someone’s death also legal so long as the person acts ‘unselfishly’.
These factors meant Nitschke and his team had viewed the country as the best place use the device without legal repercussions, however its use has now become the subject of what he called ‘significant legal concern’.
While deciding on the prospective location of a second Sarco launch remains a major hurdle, Exit International and its partner organisation The Last Resort – headed by Willet – would have a long list of candidates to choose from to use it.
Some 120 applicants hope to use the machine to end their lives, The Last Resort previously told MailOnline, with around a quarter of those on the waiting list said to be British people.
Philip Nitschke, front, stands next to a ‘suicide pod’ known as ‘The Sarco’ in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, July 8, 2024
But Nitschke said the raids and confiscation of the functioning and prototype Sarco mean ‘it’s a little hard to plan now regarding the next step.’
He admitted that there had been ‘a few unexpected developments’ since the long-awaited launch of his suicide device last month, adding that he could not go into much detail due to the ongoing legal proceedings.
The 77-year-old and his team insist they had cleared all the legal hurdles, but prosecutors have suggested otherwise.
Sticher, the public prosecutor in Schaffhausen, the canton where the device was used, said at the time that Sarco’s creators had been warned not to operate it in the region, but that the warning had not been heeded.
He has since raised suspicions that the woman may have been strangled and that her death could have been ‘intentional homicide’.
However, he has not publicly accused Willet of ‘intentional homicide’, instead using his ‘suspicion’ to get a judge to extend his custody, according to Dutch newspaper de Volksrant.
Willet, who was the only person present at the woman’s death and had been video calling Nitschke at the time, was arrested and reportedly questioned on suspicion of aiding and abetting suicide, among other unnamed offences.
Sticher has not publicly accused Willet of ‘intentional homicide’, instead using his ‘suspicion’ to get a judge to extend his custody, according to Dutch newspaper de Volksrant.
There has also been no official autopsy report released to back up the claims of strangulation, with The Last Resort claiming that the results have ‘been kept hidden’, including from their lawyers and others involved in the case.
The deceased woman had reportedly been diagnosed with skull base osteomyelitis – a disease could manifest as an infection of the bone marrow, which could have been responsible for the marks on her neck resembling strangulation marks, according to a person close to The Last Resort who spoke to Swiss outlet NZZ.
Willet and Nitschke maintain that she died from hypoxia inside the capsule after entering and activating the capsule ‘unaided’.
Knowing there would need to be an investigation – as there is in any assisted dying case in Switzerland – they alerted the police, who they said got to the forest in Merishausen hours later.
‘The lid of the Sarco was not opened until forensic staff arrived at the scene of the Sarco at 19.22,’ The Last Resort said in a statement.
Sarco inventor Dr Philip Nitschke (right) was on a video call from Germany to Willet (left) to monitor the launch on September 23
The woman’s oxygen levels were recorded and remained at lethal levels within the capsule until well after she had died, it went on.
The firm said it assumed that the prosecutor was in possession of the film footage which it claims to prove its version of events, which it says is corroborated by Volksrant’s report.
Volksrant said it had viewed and analysed the footage shared with it by The Last Resort and found no indication of tampering, although admitted that this can never be fully ruled out.
The newspaper also reported that film was captured when there were clear movements inside the pod, meaning there are gaps.
It starts at around 3.47pm on September 23, showing the woman approaching the capsule along with Willet, who removed a green tarpaulin from the device as she prepared to climb in.
Fiona Stewart, member of the Last Resort poses next to the Sarco suicide machine in July
‘If you’re ready…?’ Willet reportedly asked her. ‘Do I leave my shoes on?’ responded the woman, who was wearing loose black trousers, a woolly white cardigan and sandals.
He said she could keep them on, and she proceeded to step into the futuristic pod, lie down and adjust the purple travel pillow placed inside behind her head, according to Volksrant.
Before pushing the button, Willet asked the woman whether she would like to speak to Nitschke, who was on a video call from Germany to monitor the long-awaited launch of his device.
‘No. I’m okay,’ she reportedly replied. Willet, who was the only person present at the woman’s death, took this as an indication that the process could begin, Volksrant reports, telling Nitschke: ‘It seems that […] is ready to go.’
The blonde woman, who said she had wished to die for ‘at least two years’ while suffering with a ‘very serious illness that involves severe pain’, is then said to have closed the lid of the pod without hesitation.
A blue button indicating the pressure inside the capsule then lit up, while an internal camera showed parts of her hair, but little else, as she lay waiting, according to Volksrant.
A police cordon lies on the forest floor in connection with the first use of the death capsule Sarco by assisted dying group The Last Resort, in Merishausen, Switzerland, September 25, 2024
‘Ready?’ she then said to Willet, according to the newspaper, in what would be her final words. He reportedly confirmed that he was, before she responded ‘okay.’
Almost immediately afterwards, at around 3.54pm, she is said to have pressed the button to trigger her death.
Under instruction from Nitschke the mother-of-two then began breathing deeply and calmly – a process he informed her would hasten her death as nitrogen filled the capsule.
Holding an iPad on which he monitored her heart rate, saturation, and oxygen levels, Willet told the woman to ‘keep on breathing’.
Her oxygen levels – 20 per cent in normal air – plummeted to 0.6, Willet told Nitschke after a minute, and then to 0.3 percent after almost two and a half minutes.
At around this time, her body began severely cramping up, Willet said, a common symptom in nitrogen deaths.
While little was visible on the internal camera, footage taken externally appeared to show a dark spot appear on the inside of the fogged up window, around where the woman’s knees were.
The Sarco’s inventor Philip Nitschke pictured at a press conference in Zurich on July 17
At 4.01 pm, an alarm blared from the iPad, thought to be the heart rate monitor, with a seemingly confused Willet reportedly telling his associate: ‘She’s still alive, Philip.’
He leaned over and peered into the Sarco, and after a while, the alarm is said to have stopped.
At 4.04pm, he reportedly said that the woman had not moved for about two minutes.
It is unclear at what point it happened, but around half an hour after she pressed the button, Willet described to Nitschke how the woman died.
‘She had her eyes closed’, he said. ‘And she was breathing very deeply. Then the breathing slowed down. And then it stopped.’
‘She really looks dead,’ he added.
Willet was among several people arrested at the scene and reportedly remains in solitary confinement in custody.
Two lawyers and a photographer for Volksrant – who are understood to have only arrived at the scene after the woman died – were also arrested before being released after 48 hours.
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.
Switzerland is among the few countries in the world where foreigners can travel to legally end their lives, and is home to a number of organizations that are dedicated to helping people kill themselves.
Some lawmakers in Switzerland have argued that the law is unclear and have sought to close what they call legal loopholes.
The device was used on the same day as Swiss Interior Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider told the National Council that she considers the use of the Sarco in Switzerland to be illegal.
‘The Sarco suicide capsule is not legal in two respects,’ Baume-Schneider reportedly said.
She added: ‘On one hand, it does not fulfill the demands of the product safety law, and as such, must not be brought into circulation. On the other hand, the corresponding use of nitrogen is not compatible with the article on purpose in the chemicals law.’
Nitschke and his associates designed Sarco, which is made using a 3D printer, to be free, with people just paying for their body to be removed by funeral directors.
The woman who used the device only paid the costs for the nitrogen: 18 Swiss francs, according to the Last Resort.
The firm aims to make assisted dying almost completely free of charge, with the cost, which is equal to around £16, contrasting with the fees of most Swiss clinics, which usually charge around £10,000.
The pod is designed to allow a person inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber, according to its creators.
The pods work by replacing air, which is 21 per cent oxygen and 79 per cent nitrogen, with 100 per cent nitrogen.
The person is then supposed to fall asleep and die by suffocation in a few minutes.
Nitschke and Stewart have long said that they intend for Sarco to become an established and accessible option for euthanasia.
- UK: For help and support, call the Samaritans for free from a UK phone, completely anonymously, on 116 123 or go to samaritans.org.
- US: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
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