Sarco suicide pod is used for the first time as US woman, 64, uses the capsule to die in Swiss woodland – prompting police to swoop and detain staff

The Sarco suicide pod has been used for the first time, its creators have confirmed, with an American woman aged 64 believed to be the first person to have died in the device.

Police in northern Switzerland said that several people were detained on Monday, and that prosecutors had opened an investigation on suspicion of incitement and accessory to suicide.

The ‘Sarco’ suicide capsule is designed to allow a person inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber. The person is then supposed to fall asleep and die by suffocation in a few minutes.

Prosecutors in Schaffhausen canton were informed by a law firm that an assisted suicide involving use of the Sarco capsule had taken place Monday near a forest cabin in Merishausen, police said in a statement.

It said ‘several people’ were taken into custody and prosecutors opened an investigation on suspicion of incitement and accessory to suicide. 

The ‘Sarco’ pod, which creators say allows its occupant to push a button and trigger their own death

The Last Resort, the Swiss firm behind the pod, said in a statement to MailOnline: ‘On Monday 23 September, at approximately 16.01 CEST, a 64-year old woman from the the mid west in the USA died using the Sarco device.’

It said the co-president of the organisation, Dr Florian Willet, was the sole person present for the death, contrary to police reports.

He said the woman’s death had been ‘peaceful, fast and dignified’, taking place ‘under a canopy of trees, at a private forest retreat in the Canton of Schaffhausen close to the Swiss-German border.’

The organisation said the woman ‘had been suffering for many years from a number of serious problems associated with severe immune compromise.’

The inventor of the Sarco, Philip Nitschke, said his device ‘had performed exactly as it had been designed to do,’ saying it had provided a ‘non-drug, peaceful death at the time of the person’s choosing’.

The Last Resort Advisory Board member and lawyer, Fiona Stewart said that The Last Resort was acting at all times on the advice of their lawyers.

The Sarco’s inventor Philip Nitschke pictured at a press conference in Zurich on July 17

Fiona Stewart, member of the Last Resort poses next to the Sarco suicide machine in July

The device was used on the same day as Swiss Interior Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider told the National Council that she considers the use of the Sarco in Switzerland to be illegal. 

‘The Sarco suicide capsule is not legal in two respects,’ Baume-Schneider reportedly said.

She said it did not meet the requirements of product safety law and ‘must therefore not be placed on the market.’ 

• For help and support, call the Samaritans for free from a UK phone, completely anonymously, on 116 123 or go to samaritans.org.