An American woman who was due to be the first person to die in a ‘suicide capsule’ before going missing has now died by other means, her friends have revealed.
THE GIST
Jennifer McLaughlin, 55, had traveled to Switzerland to use the ‘Sarco’ pod – which creators say allows its occupant to push a button and trigger their own death.
But the pod’s inventor, controversial assisted dying advocate Philip Nitschke, said her planned death was ‘permanently postponed’.
Despite this, Ms McLaughlin emailed her lawyer and closest friends to tell them that she was going to have a ‘procedure’ to take her life.
SHE WENT MISSING
She then disappeared, with friends desperately trying to contact her and her disappearance reported to police, before her death was confirmed last night.
It is believed that she may have sought help from another assisted dying organisation.
She is reported to have died on Friday after receiving care from a Swiss assisted dying organisation that was not Exit International – the firm behind the Sarco.
It is not known when McLaughlin decided to take her own life, but she travelled to Switzerland earlier this summer with the intention of becoming the first person to use the Sarco pod.
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THE SARCO POD
The machine, the name of which is taken from sarcophagus, is meant to allow the euthanasia patient inside it to press a button and die ‘within seconds’, according to Nitschke’s company Exit International.
The pod is filled with nitrogen to starve the occupant of oxygen, rendering the patient unconscious before they die…a flood of nitrogen lowers the oxygen level from 21 per cent to just one per cent, supposedly killing them in 30 seconds.
