22-year-old reveals the question that saved her life just moments before assisted suicide
Seconds before a young Dutch woman was about to voluntarily end her own life, she changed her mind.Romy, 22, who suffered from clinical depression, eating disorders, and anorexia due to childhood abuse, made the heartbreaking decision to end her life in accordance with legislation in the Netherlands, which allows for euthanasia under certain circumstances.She decided not to go ahead with it at the very last moment.After turning 18, Romy campaigned for four years for her right to die via voluntary assisted dying (VAD) to doctors, officials, and her family.But in 2023, when she found herself lying in a hospital bed in the Dutch city of Leiden, she had a sudden change of heart.Earlier that day, she had seen the coffin in which she would be taken to the mortuary.Her mother was by her side, and her brother was waiting in the hospital garden for it to be over.The doctor stood over her and explained one last time the step-by-step process of what she was going to do as part of the lethal injection process under her country’s euthanasia laws.Romy gave the doctor the green light, but she was sweating and her heart was pounding as she considered the finality of what was about to happen, she says.As the doctor stepped up to administer the lethal injection, she was asked one final question to comply with Dutch law – “Are you sure?”Romy, whose surname has been withheld, was not sure.She started to cry and so did her mother, and she decided to call it all off.After initially backing out of her euthanasia, Romy requested to end her life once again and was scheduled to receive a lethal injection at a later date.However, with the persistent support of her psychiatrist, family and friends, she decided to continue with her trauma therapy and now expresses that she wants “nothing more than to live.”“I don’t regret the journey.Because I’ve been so close to death, I see life as something valuable.
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