A grieving husband was asked by his beloved wife to end her life before he watched her suffocate to death.
Warwick Jackson, 63, is haunted by the memory of Ann’s final days spent gasping for breath and begging for help to end her agony. The Shropshire couple were devastated when medics told Ann, 61, she had Stage 4 peritoneal cancer. Whilst fighting for nearly 18 months, she was told that she would die peacefully under the watchful supervision of palliative care nurses.
In a bid to legalise assisted dying, MP Kim Leadbeater told their tragic story today in Parliament. She told MPs how Ann “spent four days gasping and choking, remaining awake throughout despite being given the maximum dose of sedatives, and eventually died of suffocation”, the Mirror reports.
Ann “had begged Warwick to end her life, but as he stood over her with a pillow, he could not do what she asked as he didn’t want that to be her final memory of him“.
Warwick, sat in the shadow of Westminster as MPs debated the Assisted Dying Bill, said: “It was like a horror movie. It was like watching someone being waterboarded. It’s a horror movie but it’s happening in real time to someone you love. I just wanted it to end. I couldn’t bring myself to finish Ann’s life, even though she was suffering.”
Ann died in August 2020 after running a car lease company with her husband of 37 years. The brutal way she died left Warwick with the agonising image of his wife writing in agony and gasping for air.
He said: “It’s taken a long time to come to terms with that. Ann and I were together for 37 years, you have to be pretty close to be together for that time, running a business together and spending pretty much 24 hours a day together. On Christmas 2018 we were having a walk and Ann ran short of breath. She was physically fit, so it was a surprise.
“She had an X Ray and they found fluid on her lungs. It was an early sign that she had cancer. She was brave enough to go for chemotherapy but on the third round they said it wasn’t working and she was sent home to die.
“It was the first time that we knew it was incurable. It brought out the best of her, she was incredibly strong. She was more concerned about how I was going to feed myself than about herself. I spoke to her doctors and her palliative carers and told them about my concerns, because I was worried it would become an issue with breathing.
“I asked if she was in for a rough ride. They said she would probably die in her sleep. I told her that to make her feel better, to reassure her, but ultimately it was a lie. I have to live with that.”
Warwick is now backing Ms Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. He said: “There needs to be assisted dying to stop the number of traumatic deaths like Ann’s.”
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