"I can't wait to be free": French woman takes final journey to Belgium for euthanasia
Hemiplegic from birth and visually impaired, Lydie Imhoff, a 43-year-old Frenchwoman, is gradually losing the use of her limbs. This situation prompted her to initiate euthanasia in Belgium in March 2023. AFP, already present for her interview with a psychiatrist in Brussels, whom she consulted about this decision and gave the go-ahead, was able to accompany her again, right up to her final moments.
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00:00 Liddy spends one last night in her apartment in Besançon in eastern France.
00:08 Tomorrow morning she'll embark on her final journey, the one to Belgium, to end her life.
00:18 On the one hand I can't wait for release.
00:22 On the other hand I feel guilty for leaving behind the people I love.
00:27 But at the end of the day it's a choice I've made.
00:34 Liddy has been partially paralysed since birth and visually impaired since childhood.
00:39 But an accident in 2009 fractured several vertebrae and she's now losing control of
00:44 her limbs.
00:46 When she stopped being able to use her hands to read braille, she decided to start the
00:50 process to be euthanised.
00:55 On her way to Brussels, a stop to say goodbye to Claudette, who helped Liddy find the doctors
01:00 who would certify that she met the strict legal criteria for euthanasia in Belgium.
01:08 I just hope once I'm up there that I'll be in peace, that I can get some rest, because
01:15 I'm tired.
01:16 I'm tired of every day being a battle against my illness, against my disabilities, against
01:23 everything.
01:24 It's too much.
01:31 Last stop, the hospital in the Belgian capital, where she meets Dr Delocte.
01:41 I'm the person who will take care of liberating you, if I can use that word.
01:51 I'm thinking about the people I will leave behind.
02:02 They will say in the days to come that, despite the sadness they feel, that you're free from
02:09 your suffering.
02:13 The following day, Liddy is surrounded by her friends as the time for the lethal injection
02:17 approaches.
02:21 We inject a barbiturate, and in less than a minute, you'll fall asleep without suffering.
02:28 Do you agree?
02:29 Yes.
02:30 OK, we'll prepare the product, we'll leave you together, and we'll be back in a few minutes.
02:42 Liddy's face is calm.
02:43 She smiles as the doctors approach with the syringe filled with the barbiturate theopental.
02:55 The strong anaesthetic puts Liddy to sleep, then slows her breathing and heart until they
03:01 stop.
03:02 Her disabilities were getting worse, so my feeling was that the sickness was killing
03:13 her little by little, and I put an end to her suffering, which is in line with my ethics
03:18 as a doctor.
03:20 I don't have the feeling I killed her, I feel like I cut short her suffering, and that,
03:25 I think, is important.
03:31 Like Liddy, each year, several dozen French people choose euthanasia in Belgium.
03:36 (speaking in foreign language)