MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

First case of medically-assisted suicide in Italy carried out

Mario depended on others for everything since his road accident

The case of Federico Carboni, originally known as “Mario,” has made the headlines this week in Italy as he became the first patient to die through medically-assisted suicide, it was announced.

Mario underwent the procedure Thursday after injecting himself at his home with a lethal drug through a special device, which costs around 5,000 euros, which was supplied by the Luca Coscioni foundation which is in favor of these practices. In the absence of a law, the Italian State did not bear the costs even though the technique is permitted by the Constitutional Court.

The assisted suicide procedure was performed under medical supervision and in the presence of Mario's family, friends, and lawyers of the association.

The approval of the practice had come Feb. 9, with the ruling on the drug and on the applicable methods, after a legal battle that lasted almost two years and for which the pseudonym “Mario” was chosen.

Carboni, 44, worked as a truck driver until 2010 when he had an accident that left him quadriplegic, after which he sought to be allowed to die. As per current Italian law, aiding suicide carries a penalty of between 5 to 12 years in prison.

However, in 2019, the Constitutional Court, introduced an exception for “patients kept alive with treatments [...] and with an irreversible pathology, source of physical and psychological suffering that they consider intolerable, although they are fully capable of making free and conscious decisions.”

Carboni met all these criteria. In his last words, he assured: “I do not deny that I regret saying goodbye to life, it would be false and a liar if I said otherwise because life is fantastic and we only have one life. But unfortunately, it was like this.”

“I have done my best to be able to live as well as possible and try to recover as much as possible from my disability, but now I am mentally and physically exhausted. I do not have a minimum of autonomy in daily life, I am at the mercy of events, I depend on others for everything, I am like a ship adrift in the ocean,” he added.

“I am aware of my physical condition and my prospects, so I am totally calm and serene about what I am going to do,” he added and concluded: “Now I am finally free to fly wherever I want.”

Carboni was also praised for waging his battle in his home country instead of just going to Switzerland, where the procedure has been legal for quite a while.