A look under the hood of the 3D-printed, Raspberry Pi powered 'suicide pod' A highly controversial 3D printed suicide pod has been used for the first time, leading to multiple arrests in Switzerland. The device is so DIY-friendly that you could technically build it at home, assuming you've got the right tools and, well, the necessary motivation. The capsule-shaped pod is designed by Australian pro- …
I was more thinking that at that price, surely it would probably be rather cheaper to liaise with your local branch of the Assassins' Guild and arrange to have a hit taken out on yourself? I would imagine that they might even offer a substantial discount were you to turn up at an agreed time and place and save them all the extra labour and inconvenience of having to hunt you down…
When I was much younger, I wrapped the bare ends of a flex around the bar of an electric fire, then wrapped the other ends around my wrists, and sat and thought about switching the fire on (it was cold :) As it happens, I decided not to, but it still feels a lot simpler than a 3D printer. A plastic bag over your head with a rubber tube connected to a nitrogen supply also sounds a whole lot simpler than a sarco-whatever. In short, an overcomplicated solution to a simple problem.
regulators
I recall from my youth a respiratory physiology lecture where the lecturer was involved in WW2 frogmen (UK) operations where rebreathing equipment was used, presumably for the lack of bubbles and range, but apparently were rather dangerous since the CO2 is removed and diver isn't warned when his O2 is running low and could lose consciousness.
I imagine a similar arrangement sans oxygen, using cheap soda lime, plastic container, some plastic tubing with a (recycled?) oxygen mask could be equally lethal with the advantage everything except perhaps the last can be purchased from any hardware store.
A kit could be offered on the internet which would literally be "just add water."
Standing back it seems surreal that a very small part of this world engages in so much hand wringing about preventing people leaving this life while the rest of the planet expends most its time just to keep a toehold on existence in the face of disease, starvation and war (three of the four horsemen.)
Rebreathers extract the CO2 by use of a scrubber material - Sofnolime being the one usually bought. You effectively breathe the same breath through the closed loop the entire dive which is why they have no bubbles in the traditional sense of open circuit divers. You top the gas up using diluent - a breathable gas for the depth and type of dive you are doing as descend.
Our bodies only extract roughly 4% of the O2 from each breath, so you once the CO2 is scrubbed, the gas is passed over (usually three) O2 sensors which determine if, and how much O2 to reinject into the loop to keep the mixture breathable.
That's why, when you see rebreather divers, they have tiny 3l cylinders (larger can be used for expedition dives) compared to the much larger ones that open circuit divers use.
However. They can kill you in unique and unexpected ways - if you don't pack the scrubber material properly, for example, the CO2 will "channel" - after all it's a gas and will find the path of least resistance - and before you know it you are breathing in less O2 and more CO2.
Yeah... rebreather diver here.
You missed the CO2 scrubber. Our urge to breathe is based on blood pH. If the CO2 rises so will your respiration, right up to gasping in panic.
I’m not kidding, My degree & PhD are in Physiology. In 2nd year respiratory lab I was rebreathing high O2 to induce hypercapnia, My partner kept asking if I was okay and I would grunt. He turned me to room air when I started making “seal noises”. My memory is hazy of the incident. My CO2 level in the device was higher than I achieved on the asphyxia (rebreathing the same normal air). We also did hypozia run by a medically qualified lecturer. The O2 level dropped gradually expressed as metres above sea level. You were given sums to do, when you started getting them wrong or just pausing you got turned onto room air.
After my hypercapnia incident It was changed to something definite like a thumbs up. We were on stools so at some point I would have fallen off.
While your examples illustrate simpler methods, the key issue in assisted suicide is the "assisted" part. Those capable of independently executing such methods likely don't require assistance. The ethical and legal complexities arise when individuals:
Need help administering lethal substances.
Lack the physical capability to end their life independently.
Your examples (electric fire setup or nitrogen asphyxiation) assume the person has both the means and ability to carry out these acts. However, some may be unable to obtain the necessary materials or physically set up such devices.
The societal dilemma centers on:
a) Requesting someone else to perform euthanasia.
b) Helping position someone for an easier suicide.
In many jurisdictions, those who assist in these scenarios, even if acting on the individual's expressed wishes, are often classified as criminals.
Legitimate concerns exist regarding potential coercion and ensuring genuine, ongoing consent. For instance, how can one clearly communicate a change of heart after significant preparation?
The Sarco device, while seemingly overcomplicated, attempts to address these issues by:
Providing a controlled environment.
Incorporating a consent verification process.
Allowing the individual to initiate the final action independently.
An earlier example, the Australian "Deliverance Machine" from the late 1990s, used similar principles. It posed a series of questions before administering lethal drugs, balancing user control with consent verification; the big difference being that you needed a medical professional to insert the IV and typically also to supply the lethal dose of barbiturates needed.
> Lack the physical capability to end their life independently.
While we're discussing the issue I'll share the details of my mother-in-law's end. She was 87 and had lived a full life - six children - no regrets. But she developed a cancer behind the nose, in the sinus and throat. It was too widespread to be treatable and it damaged nerves and prevented her from swallowing and therefore eating. She came home to die and spent her last 3 weeks in a bed in her own home. During that time she received palliative care which basically consisted of ever higher doses of morphine because - and I'll be blunt about it - starving to death is one of the most drawn out and painful ways to die.
At one point there was a new junior nurse who was instructed to give a dose of morphine. The look of shock on her face re the size of the dose was clear to see and she started to query it. The senior nurse gave her a look and she quickly put her professional face back on and gave the injection. I assume afterwards she was put in the picture.
Officially my mother-in-law died of cancer and various complications. Unofficially she died of organ failure and respiratory depression due to morphine overdose... with contributory factors of starvation, cancer etc.
The last two weeks were particularly grim as an onlooker: my MiL was completely out of it - unable to speak or react - but still conscious. Her breathing made the most hideous gurgling noise - like smoke being drawn through a hookah - the kind of sound that if it had been accurately portrayed in a TV documentary there would have been complaints about it being unnecessarily gruesome.
If euthanasia had been available, in her case it would have been about cutting short the last two weeks, maybe 3 - no more.
It's changed my view of euthanasia: up until then I'd always thought of it as people who are relatively well, but who know there is a sticky end coming and want to end things months or even years early. And that may still be true for some people with long-term, untreatable conditions, but for most people it's about avoiding a few weeks of pain.
It's almost that not allowing euthanasia is making the situation worse: if I thought I would be forced to endure a drawn-out and painful death then I would take steps to end my life while I was able to do so without help, despite knowing the emotional distress it would cause to relatives and friends. If euthansia were available then I would wait until much nearer the end - allowing relatives to come to terms with the situation.
And the point of legal euthanasia is that she CAN wait until she is in this state.
Without the 'help' of the nurse she would have been forced to end her life perhaps years earlier. While she was still able to go the doctors and stock up on sleeping tablets without risking implicating anyone else who might have helped her.
The irony of places where assisted suicide is legal is that suicides are reduced. The knowledge that you can be helped when necessary prevents people having to do it earlier, perhaps unnecessarily, in fear of what the end might be.
I've just been through this with my Mum a few weeks ago. She had two major strokes within an hour and lost the ability to swallow. She already had dementia and wasn't able to communicate that well anyway, so the stroke on top of it made her only able to open her eyes (with trouble fixing on anything) and hold your hand.
We were given the choice to take her into hospital and pump her full of fluids, but that would only delay the inevitable. She was never going to recover from the stroke and even if she did, the rapid progression of the dementia would have taken her within a year or so anyway. We decided to let her stay in the nursing home she was in and familiar with. After watching her Mother (my Gran) die with dementia, she had always expressed how much she didn't want to live like that. Her biggest fear was being incapacitated in exactly this way, so we didn't want to extend it in any way. We sat beside her bed for five days as she slowly slipped away. Within a day or so she was pretty much in a vegetive state and no longer reacting to stimuli, but her body held on for a few days more.
It was a horrific thing to watch, we honestly treat animals with more dignity. In a no hope situation like this, I would think it reasonable that, if a team of doctors all agree, medical professionals should be able to help speed things along. Watching her suffer for five days was terrible.
I assume afterwards she was put in the picture.
I imagine the caring vocations have always understood this.
One of Pratchett's witches, probably Granny (Esmeralda) Weatherwax, put it best by describing her role as easing your arrival into the world and to easing your departure from it.
You are dead right! But seriously, one of the many ways that our society is crazy is that we don’t allow people who are EOL to actually request termination.
One of my close relatives said to me “if I get to that state, shoot me!”, referring to medium/advanced dementia. I would happily carry out his wishes except that a) I don’t have access to a gun or any means of getting one legally, and b) it would be so illegal to do it that it would make my life far more of a misery than he possibly could.
The stupid thing is that even if he passed a stringent mental capacity test (which I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t now) and swore an affidavit saying that he really, really, wanted euthanasia once he reached a certain lack of capacity, the law here in the UK doesn’t allow him that choice, and criminalises anyone who tries to help.
PS If the government wants to help the NHS, it could start by sorting this out, and as well as saving a fortune it would earn huge kudos points from the population!!
An acquaintance of mine (didn't really know him well enough to call him a friend, knew his partner a lot better than him) was a keen outdoors man, used to lead groups on hiking / walking / camping tours.
He was diagnosed with early stages dementia.
After a few years when it had reached level where he was no longer able to lead trips, he went out camping on his own and committed suicide.
In his explanatory note he had left, he mentioned there being no way to guarantee being put out of his misery when his condition got really bad & he did not want to be alive in that state so was ending it while he was still capable of doing so. I'm sure there are others who have done / will do similar.
"Nitschke has also been working on an implant that would be able to euthanize Alzheimer patients unable to make their own care decisions"
I feel like we need more information here. It's one thing for a person of sound mind to choose how they die, but unasked-for euthanization is just murder, innit?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67752009
"The method has been criticised for the potential deadly threat it can pose to others in the area - the execution team, spiritual advisers and witnesses - in the event that gas were to escape the hose supplying it."
Sigh... did they not learn at school that the atmosphere is 80% nitrogen?
"Sigh... did they not learn at school that the atmosphere is 80% nitrogen?"
I'm assuming you're saying that therefore breathing nitrogen would do you no harm? Nitrogen as a form of euthanasia works because it replaces the oxygen in the air one breathes, so the person falls unconscious from lack of oxygen, then dies.
Unless I've missed something in your post, in which case sorry.
They tricky part will be getting the liquid nitrogen. If you can do that, why not use your car as the suicide pod? You might have to buy a bit more nitrogen (cryogenics protip: it costs about the same as milk) but you save seventeen grand on the printing, fewer people know what you're up do and you can drive somewhere nice for your final journey.
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Given most of us end up in a suitably sized wooden box before disposal, I would have thought the sensible approach might be to design the coffin to be airtight and with a viewing window in the coffin's lid.
Philip Nitschke also known in AU as Dr Death has been on a life mission to end life a little bit earlier which has in the past brought him no end of trouble.
I think most AU jurisdictions do now, but only recently, permit assisted dying for which we can thank Philip Nitschke in part.
AU is notorious for its lethal wildlife so you might believe actually staying alive would be a more of an issue. ;)
>They tricky part will be getting the liquid nitrogen. If you can do that, why not use your car as the suicide pod?
We used to carry open 50L tanks of liquid Nitrogen to a telescope inside ancient Fiat Panda hatchbacks.
Until one fell over.
Amazing how fast you can get out of a car when it starts turning into a scene from Terminator 2
"a device that is used solely for suicide contradicts the medical purpose under therapeutic products legislation and cannot be classified as a medical device."
Not sure how you would do the clinical trials for ISO-13485
The device failed because one of the trial participants lived ?
... but at least it had open sides, for air to flow through and a better overall experience, like in Soylent Green's Thanatorium ... this here pod is sealed shut, like the cryogenic units in Planet of the Apes' Icarus (Liberty 1) spaceship (cf. ship interior photo) which is rather more freaky IMHO!
It seems to me that if you managed to successfully source the nitrogen, downloaded the designs, get them printed, assembled the sarcophagus, tested for gas leaks, arranged transport to the "valley of death", you would feel pretty proud of your achievements and maybe not want to use the device anymore.
(Device probably would be illegal in The Netherlands because of nitrogen emissions. Or you may have to buy out someone else's nitrogen allowance, adding to the cost of your departure.)
Icon ======> Making the atmosphere unbreathable.
Device probably would be illegal in The Netherlands because of nitrogen emissions.
Really? The Netherlands has a surface area of 42,000 km2, which means that the bottom 2m of the atmosphere there - up to human height - already contains 42,000 x 10002 x 2 x 1.225 x 79% = 81.3bn kg of nitrogen. How much does this pod release?
It would have near-zero nitrogen emissions as considered by anti pollution regulations, as there would be no ammonia and very little nitrous oxides emissions, but mostly pure N2
Humans are weird. We don't feel like we are suffocating due to lack of Oxygen, but a build up of CO2. Many of people have passe out and died in industrial settings where there wasn't and/enough Oxygen. We had to do safety training on this when I was in aerospace as we used N (gas and liquid) and He. We used LOx too, but that was a whole other day. Terry Pratchett did a show/series on choosing for oneself where he explored a number of different procedures. When he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's (I think), he didn't want to hang out for so long that he was a burden on his family.
An expensive pod is a silly waste of money. Nitrogen gas and plastic bags are amazingly easy to come by. Next week might be a different story. Liquid Nitrogen would a big complication. You don't have to go without Oxygen for very long before continuing to go without is no longer an issue.
I buy various gasses at the welding supply all the time and thus far, nobody has asked about my will to live.
I would've thought the easiest way to get assisted suicide was to go to Canada, get a Doctors appointment and say you have a bit of a cold, before you know it, they'll be offering assisted suicide and already strapping you down.
All joking aside,I believe the one thing you truly own in your life is your life and it is up to you to decide if you've had enough (with multiple psycharistrists evaluation, reviews etc... as per dignitas so you still need to pass through testing to make sure you have the mental capacity and also to determine that there is no coercion etc...)
Medical profession and religious crowd out there push that people should live to the end at whatever the cost to them, their loved ones etc... to what I would call extreme cruelty at a persons most needed moments. As many have said elsewhere, you wouldn't put an animal through that much pain and suffering and some are gleeful at prolonging a human (animal) pain and suffering.
probably get downvotes and dislikes for this viewpoint!
>Medical profession and religious crowd out there push that people should live to the end at whatever the cost to them, their loved ones etc.
While the same people are happy to send millions of their children to kill themselves over to what degree a S.E. Asian country implements strategic investment in vital national industries.
"Medical profession and religious crowd out there push that people should live to the end at whatever the cost to them, their loved ones etc"
Exactly.
When one of the doctors told me "suicide is illegal in this state", I wanted to say "Like I fscking CARE about what [your] state wants or says. But I *did* tell the administrator that the state has absolutely *no* right to tell me that I have to keep on living, because then I am de facto property of the state.
Keep your damn religious ignorance to yourself.
When I did science research on animals there were levels of suffering any given experiment was allowed to do (with local or total anaesthesia & analgesics). I have been in the position of having to decide that this mouse needs to be killed to end its suffering. If I do not do this I will be prosecuted for animal cruelty and a breach of the Home Office Animal License conditions.
I am good at stretching mouse necks. I made myself good at it so the mouse would not suffer. They are used to being scruffed, so you put them on a surface go to scruff but stretch suddenly and quickly. Mice die easily from shock.
"Sarcophagus" means something like "flesh / body eater", in that order.
Not to go too far into this, but you could do it in a car cheaper. Call an Uber.
I suppose that candles or the traditional canary can be used for the safety of outsiders - and your driver - to indicate the presence or absence of oxygen.
"Just adding a couple of details:
1) Pratchett was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, which ultimately ends at the same place as dementia but takes a different route to get there.
I was too lazy to do a quick search
2) Pratchett did not in the end resort to assisted suicide."
Yes, I should have pointed that out. He was very concerned about the quality of his last days and the impact to those around him so did some research and presented a show about it.
Would it not be better to use Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas)?
You get all the Anesthetic benefits whilst being suffocated.
Less seriously there is the posibility of one of our co-planitarions not being able to source nitrous oxide and substituting a bulk purchase of spray cream. A Darwin Award contender if succesful?
No need, hypoxia via Nitrogen is akin to being drunk anyway, that's why they have the CO2 removal.
I'm pretty sure a standard medical O2 mask hooked up to a nitrogen bottle would do
Michael Portillo presented an awesome documentary "How to kill a Human Being" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1228865/
"I'm pretty sure a standard medical O2 mask hooked up to a nitrogen bottle would do"
Luxury!
You'd need the mask to fit pretty closely to make sure you weren't getting any Oxygen from around the edges. A plastic bag might work better since even a big breath would be less likely to pull air in from outside.
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