‘ A tranquil death’: Colombian bids adieu

Cali: For the first time in years, Víctor Escobar stopped taking most of the medicines needed for his lung disease. There was no longer any need. On Friday evening, he became the first Colombian to be euthanized despite not yet being in terminal condition.

“I feel an immense tranquility. I don’t feel fear of what is to come,” Escobar said. “They have told me that the process is going to be a slow sedation at first so that I have time to say goodbye. “After that is the injection of the euthanasia, which is going to be something without pain — a very tranquil death. I trust in God that that all this will be that way,” he said in a weak voice while sitting on a sofa in the small home. His lawyer, Luis Giraldo, said that the process had been completed and Escobar was dead. Escobar was the first to use a July ruling of the nation’s top court that changed the rules for euthanasia, allowing it to be applied to people who suffer intense physical or psychological suffering due to a grave and incurable disease, even if they are not yet near death. —(AP)