The Sarco pod was used in Switzerland for the first time last year
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
The creator of the Sarco pod, often referred to as the ‘suicide pod’, has gone into more detail about how it works.
The pod was created by Dr Philip Nitschke with the aim to provide a ‘peaceful, reliable, and drug-free’ death in 10 minutes.
However, it’s not been without it’s fair share of controversy, especially after it was put to use last year.
On 23 September, the pod was used for the first time by a 64-year-old American woman in Switzerland, with the doctor who oversaw the procedure being taken into police custody by the Swiss Federal Police.
According to Dr Florian Willett, the woman had a ‘fast, peaceful and dignified’ death using the device, with Nitschke previously
describing how she’d ‘entered the capsule unassisted’ and ‘pressed the button when she was ready’, adding: “She lost consciousness within, we estimate, two minutes and died in about six minutes.”
The pod is designed to fill up with nitrogen gas, decreasing the oxygen levels and knocking the person inside unconscious in under one minute before they pass away after 10 minutes, with Nitschke previously explaining on the How It Ticks podcast in December last year about the process a bit more in depth.
Host Mike Connors told Philip that he was ‘surprised’ to hear it was a ‘painless’ way to do it, asking: “So there’s no struggle from the body, gasping for oxygen?”
Nitschke replied: “No, you need to have a very sudden drop in oxygen.”
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He continued to say that when someone gets into the pod and presses the button, they are ‘filling the lungs up with zero oxygen’, with a ‘precipitous drop in the level of oxygen in the blood coming up from your heart, past your lungs, to your brain’.
“That drops off precipitously, so that the blood gets to your brain with no oxygen. Your brain immediately conserves what little oxygen it’s got, and it does that quickly by you losing consciousness.” he said.
He said it is fast acting and ‘within two breaths’ the person in the pod loses consciousness and faints.
The person in the pod is then left in a ‘zero oxygen environment, breathing easily, just with no oxygen’, which Nitschke claimed ‘is not the same sort of death you get when you obstruct the breathing… those are horrible deaths’.
“With this you breathe easily, but there’s no oxygen, so it’s hypoxia, you’re unconscious. Then step by step, different essential activities controlled by your brain are switched down,” he went on to say.
He said it takes around 5 to 10 minutes for the heart to stop in that zero oxygen environment, with the person in the pod ‘unconscious for the vast majority of it’.
Nitschke said that with a lack of oxygen, ‘some muscle contractions take place’, however, he insists these are normal and any witnesses shouldn’t worry if the person is ‘having a horrible time and being tortured to death’.
While the pod promises a quick death, the inventor did issue a warning to those who wish to use it, saying: “Once the button is pressed, there is no way back.”
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, please don’t suffer alone. Call Samaritans for free on their anonymous 24-hour phone line on 116 123.
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