On Tuesday, Swiss police said they had arrested two people for aiding in the death of a US woman in a woodland area in Schaffhausen, a northern town near the German border.
A photographer from the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant was at the scene to capture the moment the pod was used for the first time. He was detained by police, the newspaper said.
Last Resort – the Swiss organisation founded in July 2023 specifically to develop the pod which states that “a good death is a fundamental human right” – confirmed in a statement that a 64-year-old woman died after using the device.
It said: “On Monday, September 23, at approximately 4.01pm local time, a 64-year-old woman from the midwest in the US died using the Sarco device.”
The firm said its co-president, Dr Florian Willet, was the sole person present for the death, contrary to police reports.
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” immunodeficiency.
Earlier this month, Peter and Christine Scott, a retired British couple who have been married for 46 years, said they had decided to end their lives at the same time in the pod after Scott, a former nurse, was diagnosed with early-stage vascular dementia.
The 80-year-old and her husband, 86, who have six grandchildren, are on a waiting list of 120 applicants to use the device, according to Last Resort, with around a quarter of those on the list said to be British.
Under Swiss law, helping another person to die is not a criminal offence as long as there is no selfish motive.
However, several districts, including Schaffhausen, have threatened criminal proceedings if the suicide pod is used in their territory.
On Monday, federal councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider said the capsule did not comply with Swiss law as it failed to meet market safety requirements and the use of nitrogen was illegal.
A coffin-sized cabin
According to De Volkskrant, the unnamed woman, who had travelled to Switzerland especially for the purpose, started the assisted suicide process on Monday afternoon in a forest by pressing a button while lying in the capsule – a coffin-sized cabin with a window.
The news outlet said its photographer was being held by police after photographing the scene beforehand. A lawyer who was the sole person present at the time of death was also thought to have been arrested.
The woman’s death was confirmed by Dr Nitschke, the Australian inventor of the pod, who monitored her oxygen and heart rate remotely through a camera from Germany.
The Sarco was set up outdoors, in a remote location. Through a window, the woman had a view of nature, trees and the sky during her last moments.
Willet, who is Nitschke’s wife, then informed police and the Schaffhausen public prosecutor who arrived at the scene and made the arrests and confiscated the capsule, according to reports.
The body was taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine for an autopsy.
Last Resort said the woman who died made an oral statement before her death to Fiona Stewart, a lawyer who is on its advisory board, expressing her wish to die.
In the four-minute recording, she said she had wanted to die for “at least two years”, ever since she was diagnosed with a very serious illness that involves severe pain.
She insisted that her two sons “completely agree” that this was her decision. “They are behind me 100%.”
Stewart said both sons, not present in Switzerland, had separately confirmed this in written statements to Last Resort.
“When she registered, she said she wanted to die as soon as possible,” said Stewart.
The American woman was examined by a psychiatrist, who found her to be competent, with no psychiatric history, she added.
Controversial activist
Nitschke’s actions have caused controversy in the past. In 2006, he created a worldwide stir by publishing The Peaceful Pill Handbook, in which he described dozens of suicide methods in detail. He moved to the Netherlands 10 years ago.
“What if we dared to imagine that our last day on this planet would also be our most exciting?” he once said of the Sarco.
“The day we die is one of the most important days of our lives,” he told De Volkskrant. “Once death becomes inevitable, why don’t we embrace it? With this capsule, you can die anywhere you want: with a view of the mountains, or the ocean.
“Apart from this device, almost nothing is needed: no injection from a doctor, no illegal drugs that are difficult to obtain. This de-medicalises death.”
According to Nitschke, the woman’s death was an important step for organisations that fight for self-determination when it comes to dying.
He said he had tested his pod several times in advance, even lying in it for five minutes this spring with an oxygen mask on his face, while it was filled with nitrogen.
He told De Volkskrant his invention was a more elegant version of “using gas and a bag over [one’s] head”, adding it was more akin to passengers being starved of oxygen when cabin pressure drops in an aeroplane.
“We know from people who have survived that it doesn’t feel like suffocation,” he is cited as saying. “People just keep breathing. After half a minute they start to feel disoriented.
“They don’t really notice what’s happening to them. Some experience mild euphoria. Then they just drift off.”
According to Last Resort, the woman only paid the 18 Swiss francs (£16) charge for the nitrogen.
“The use of the Sarco is free,” said Stewart. “We don’t want to make any money from this.”
The woman did have to pay additional costs, such as her cremation, she said, adding that other legal assisted dying organisations charge thousands to dispose of the body.
Objections by Dignitas
However, other Swiss assisted-dying organisations have expressed opposition to the Sarco.
Dignitas told the SWI news site that professional medical suicide assistance must be carried out by “trained staff and that every accompanied suicide is checked by the authorities (public prosecutor’s office, police and medical officer)”.
“In light of this legally secured, established and proven practice, we cannot imagine that a technologised capsule for a self-determined end of life will meet much acceptance or interest in Switzerland,” it said.
According to Erika Preisig, a doctor and president of the Basel-based organisation Lifecircle, medical intervention also serves as a “gatekeeper” to prevent unnecessary suicides.
“I fear that people without sufficient information about alternatives to suicide and who have not thought their death wish through carefully will be unscrupulously helped to die,” she told SWI.
The Swiss organisations also describe Sarco as inhumane, because the person has to die “alone” in a closed capsule, separated from their relatives.
Nitschke is seeking the Sarco pod’s use elsewhere. He recently wrote to Liam McArthur, the MSP seeking to legalise assisted suicide in Scotland, urging him to introduce the device.
