Ramón Sampedro

Ramón Sampedro (5 January 1943, Porto do Son – 12 January 1998) was a ship fisherman from Galicia, Spain, who became a quadriplegic in a diving accident at the age of 25 and fought for his right to an assisted suicide for the next 29 years. As a young man he had jumped into the sea from rocks near his home, a fishing village in the northern Spanish region of Galicia. Misjudging the water's depth, he struck his head on the bottom. He sustained a complete spinal cord injury, leaving him paralysed from the neck down.

Ramon tried Spain's lower courts, its higher courts, even the European Commission on Human Rights in Strasbourg to end his life. His argument hinged on the fact that he was sure of his decision to die. However, owing to his paralysis, he was physically unable to commit suicide without help. He argued that suicide was a right that he was being denied, and he sought legal advice concerning his right to receive assistance to end his life, first in the courts of Spain, where his case attracted country-wide attention. Eventually, his fight became known worldwide.

Death and aftermath

Sampedro died on Monday 12 January 1998 in Boiro, Spain, from potassium cyanide poisoning. He divided the tasks required for his suicide into small enough pieces that no single person could be convicted of assisted suicide. Several days later, a close friend of Ramón, Ramona Maneiro, was arrested and charged with assisting his suicide but was released due to lack of evidence. No further charges were ever filed in connection with Ramón's death.

Seven years later, after the statute of limitations had expired, Maneiro, speaking on a Spanish talk show, admitted to providing Sampedro with a cyanide-laced drink and a straw. She said "I did it for love." She also said she had turned on the video camera that recorded Ramón's last words before he drank the poison and that she was in the room, behind the camera.

He left an impressive open letter to the judges and the society and caused an ethical turmoil in the Spanish society which led to a Senatorial Committee on Euthanasia in 1999.

Mar adentro

The story of Sampedro's life and death was made into a Spanish film, Mar adentro (English title: The Sea Inside) (2004), in which he was portrayed by Javier Bardem. The movie drew international attention and won the Best Foreign Language Film at the 77th Academy Awards.

He wrote a book before he died Cartas Desde el Infierno (Letters from Hell). It is in Spanish and includes a collection of poems, short essays, and reflections on life from Sampedro’s point of view. ISBN-10: 8408056328

External links

• "Live and Let Die". TIME. January 26, 1998. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1998/int/980126/file.live_and_let_die.sh11.html.  Article by Rod Usher in TIME magazine written shortly after Sampedro's death.
• "RAMÓN SAMPEDRO'S WILL". DMD. March 9, 1998. http://personal2.redestb.es/admd/ramwill.html.  Partial text of Ramón Sampedro's Will, addressed to "Honors, Political and Religious Authorities" (Translated by Denise Lanzer-Lerma)
• "A Suicide Tape on TV Inflames the Issue in Spain". The New York Times. March 9, 1998. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9402E0D61430F93AA35750C0A96E958260.