It’s a crisp Monday morning in the quaint town of Amersfoort in the Netherlands, and a group of elderly guests are listening intently to the words of an Australian doctor.
Dr. Philip Nitschke, the first doctor in the world to use legal voluntary lethal injection, and inventor of the controversial Sarco capsule, presents his latest device.
The Australian-born founder of Exit International, a non-profit organization that provides guidance on medically assisted suicide, sparked controversy in 2024 when a woman ended her life using a so-called suicide pod, in what appears to be the first case of its kind.
But undeterred by the negative press and people repeatedly calling him “Dr. Death” — a title he does not relish — Dr. Nitschke is more passionate than ever about expanding access to euthanasia.
The 20 participants were brought together for one of the 78-year-old’s “exit workshops” which, according to his website, cover the legal issues surrounding euthanasia, the physiology of death, and suicide methods such as “gases”, “Drugs and Other Substances”, “Swiss Option (including the Sarco discussion)”, and “The New Kairos Collar”.
It is the Kairos Collar that Dr. Nitschke displays live to his observant guests, but on a silver-haired plastic mannequin, of course.
It works by compressing the carotid arteries and baroreceptors in the neck, cutting off blood flow to the brain and causing the wearer to lose consciousness before death.
In a post on the
Dr. Philip Nitschke with his new invention, the Kairos Cooler
Dr. Philip Nitschke presents Kairos Kollar at an Exit International workshop
Dr. Nitschke lies in a “suicide pod” known as “Sarco” in Rotterdam, Netherlands
The dying workshops last three hours, including a break for tea and biscuits as well as an extensive Q&A with the euthanasia expert himself.
For the doctor, one of the most important considerations when developing new technology is how to avoid what he sees as each country’s restrictive assisted suicide laws.
This is what makes Kairos Kollar a “game changer,” according to its website.
Dr. Nitschke told his guests: “You can build your own collar, and suicide is not a crime.” Herald Sun Who attended the workshop in Amersfoort.
“It would work like an airbag in a car, when you push a button, it goes off, you black out, you die.”
In this particular session, the Kairos Kollar was designed with a particularly cheerful color palette, keeping in mind its purpose – it matches a rainbow-colored edge and bright orange piping.
The contraption provides “peaceful, fast and reliable passage,” is “cheap and easy to make” and “completely legal,” according to Exit International.
This is important, because Dr. Nitschke’s Sarco capsule caused a stir with legal authorities in Switzerland when a 64-year-old woman from the Nordic forest resigned herself to committing suicide with the help of the futuristic device.
In fact, at the workshop in Amersfoort, the Australian doctor had to produce an inflatable version of the human-sized capsule, because the real Sarco capsule was seized by Dutch police in a raid on his office last year.
Dr. Philip Nitschke, the first doctor in the world to administer a voluntary, legal, lethal injection, is pictured during a presentation of the Sarco suicide machine in Zurich, Switzerland, July 17, 2024
Dr. Nitschke, in the foreground, stands next to the “suicide pod” known as “The Sarco” in Rotterdam
Fiona Stewart, a member of Last Resort, stands next to Sarco’s suicide machine in July 2024
Dr Nitschke was born in the 1940s in Ardrossan, South Australia, the son of teacher parents.
He studied physics at the University of Adelaide before obtaining a PhD from Flinders University in laser physics in 1972.
He was training to become a doctor at Darwin Hospital when he heard a radio program that would change his life: the Prime Minister of Australia’s Northern Territory, was campaigning for euthanasia for terminally ill patients.
He couldn’t help but be convinced by the argument, and began campaigning for the controversial issue.
Despite the strong objections of many doctors in Australia, the Terminally Ill Bill of Rights – the world’s first assisted dying legislation – was passed by five votes and became law in 1996.
This legislation was short-lived and was repealed by the Australian Parliament in March 1997, after uproar from the medical profession and the church.
But during the short period the virus was active, four Australians in the Northern Territory died legally by lethal injection, with Dr Nitschke helping each time.
In 2014, the Medical Council of Australia suspended Dr Nitschke’s practicing license after he supported 45-year-old Nigel Brayley’s decision to take his own life.
The doctor appealed the decision twice, and eventually the Supreme Court in Darwin ruled in his favour, overturning the ruling that he posed a serious and immediate danger to people.
But reinstating his medical license came at a cost: He was only allowed to practice again under 25 conditions, including not bringing up the topic of suicide to patients.
An angry Dr. Nitschke called the circumstances “a clumsy and clumsy attempt to restrict the free flow of information about end-of-life choices” and publicly burned his medical certificate in response, announcing that he was leaving the profession.
A picture of the Sarco suicide capsule, which can be operated internally and reduces the level of oxygen
Police in Switzerland arrested several people in September 2024 on suspicion of inciting, aiding and abetting suicide after carrying out the first Sarco chamber-assisted killing.
The 3D-printed coffin-like machine aims to provide a way for patients to die painlessly in just 10 minutes by depriving them of oxygen after pressing a button, flooding the machine with nitrogen.
Dr. Florian Willet, the founder of The Last Resort who facilitated the use of the capsule, was arrested in the Swiss forest and placed in pretrial detention for 70 days, with the prosecutor claiming that the capsule did not work and that the woman had instead suffered injuries consistent with strangulation.
The right-to-die activist was later released in December 2024 and was never charged with premeditated murder of the woman.
Five months later, on May 5, he died. Dr Nitschke said his death was by assisted suicide in Germany, after the arrest left him “broken”.
“In the last months of his life, Dr. Florian Willett endured more than any man should,” the Australian doctor said in a statement, adding that the German euthanasia activist suffered psychological trauma after his arrest.
Before his death in May, Dr. Willett fell from the third floor of his building, according to Dr. Nitschke, requiring surgery and “care by a full psychiatric team.”
The Australian activist expected the police to be surprised by the capsule, but he was puzzled by the arrest and temporary detention of the photographer and lawyers.
“I can’t see that we broke any laws,” he told Prospect magazine. He also objected to unsupported suggestions that there were signs of strangulation on the woman’s body.
“It’s really weird, because we got this movie,” he said. “And the film is quite clear that she climbed on her own without assistance. She pressed the button without assistance. The capsule was not opened until the police arrived.
The woman was reportedly diagnosed with osteomyelitis at the base of the skull.
The disease could manifest as a bone marrow infection, which may be responsible for the marks on her neck that resembled strangulation marks, according to a person close to The Last Resort who spoke to Swiss outlet Neue Zuercher Zeitung.
The doctor has previously faced backlash over the capsule from groups opposed to legalizing euthanasia, with some saying its futuristic design encourages suicide.
General view of the officially closed forest hut associated with the first use of the Sarco death capsule by assisted death group The Last Resort, in Merishausen, Switzerland.
A view of the O2 detector and pure nitrogen release button on a Sarco suicide machine
Dementia key design by Darab Jafari. According to Dr. Nitschke, the blue part is the microsyringe containing the lethal drug, the green part is the processor that provides timing, and the white part is the lithium battery.
Early diagrams of the converter, shared with MailOnline, show the different components it could include
Despite opposition to his methods, Dr. Nitschke never abandons his ever-evolving inventions.
He is currently developing the Sarco Double Chamber, in an attempt to meet the demand of couples who want to die in each other’s arms.
Not only that, he’s also building a “kill switch” implant that could allow dementia patients to time their death years in advance.
The mechanism will be sewn to the person’s body — most likely their leg — and contain a timer that will beep and vibrate to warn them to turn it off each day.
If they fail to do so due to deteriorating brain function in the late stages of the disease, a lethal substance will be released into their system to kill them, Dr. Nitschke says.
The assisted dying campaigner believes his new device could solve the “dementia dilemma” – a condition in which a person suffering from the disease is seen as lacking the mental capacity to consent to their death.
He is co-author of an ever-expanding book compiling information on medically assisted suicide called “The Peaceful Pill eHandbook,” which is updated six times a year, “providing subscribers with the best information available about end-of-life choice strategies,” his website says.
This year he is showcasing the Kairos Kollar, but only time will tell what new device the doctor will create next.