Arrests Follow First Death in Swiss Suicide Pod

Several people have been taken into custody in Switzerland following the first use of an assisted suicide device that delivers a fatal dose of nitrogen gas at the touch of a button. The $1 million Sarco capsule developed by Netherlands-based assisted suicide group Exit International features a sealed chamber in which a person sits in a reclined seat and pushes a button to release nitrogen gas, which replaces all oxygen within a minute, the AP reports. According to Exit International, the individual loses consciousness after a few breaths and dies in roughly five minutes. The group said Tuesday that a 64-year-old US woman suffering from "severe immune compromise" was the first person to use the device in Switzerland's Schaffhausen canton on Monday afternoon.

The statement said Florian Willet, co-president of The Last Resort, an affiliate of Exit International, was the only witness to the "peaceful, fast and dignified" death. Exit International founder Dr. Philip Nitschke said he was "pleased that the Sarco had performed exactly as it had been designed ... to provide an elective, non-drug, peaceful death at the time of the person's choosing." He previously cited lawyers as saying use of the Sarco would be legal in Switzerland, where the law allows for assisted suicide so long as the person has no "external assistance" and those who help in the process do not have "any self-serving motive."

But Swiss Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider said Monday that use of the Sarco violated the law. "It does not fulfill the demands of the product safety law" and "the corresponding use of nitrogen is not compatible with the article on purpose in the chemicals law," she said, per the AP. The public prosecutors' offices of Schaffhausen and other cantons had already said they would initiate criminal proceedings if the capsule was used in their regions. On Tuesday, Schaffhausen police announced they had seized the Sarco and detained "several people" for suspected incitement and accessory to suicide. Willet and a photographer for Dutch newspaper Volkskrant were among those detained, reports NL Times. (More Switzerland stories.)