Ramon Sampedro Cameán ( Porto do Son , Corunna , 5 of January of 1943 - Boiro , La Coruna , December of January of 1998 ) was a sailor and writer Spanish suffering from quadriplegia since age 25 who developed an intense activity of court petition To be able to request assisted suicide and that the person or persons who helped him / her would not incur a crime, since his / her state was incapable of doing so without outside help.
Biography
He was born on January 5 in the Galician city council of Porto do Son. At the age of 18 he enrolled in the merchant navy with the aim of knowing the world. At the age of 25 he suffered an accident, throwing himself headlong into the water from a rock on the beach of As Furnas , a day of sea surf, which left him quadriplegic and bedridden for the rest of his life. It was the first citizen to ask in Spain on assisted suicide . It argued the right of each person to dispose of his own life, being incapable to commit suicide. His petition was denied to him because the Penal Code then in force, of the Revised Text of 1973, did not allow it, as it does today with the correlative precept (143.4) of the current Penal Code of 1995, when it states that ” Or cooperate actively with necessary and direct acts to the death of another, at the express, serious and unequivocal request of the latter, in the event that the victim suffers a serious illness that would necessarily lead to his death, or that causes serious and permanent suffering Of support “will be punished with lesser punishment by one or two degrees to imprisonment of 2 to 5 years (for mere cooperation with necessary acts) or imprisonment from 6 to 10 years (if the cooperation reaches the point of Execute death).
He wrote two books: Letters from the Inferno (1996) where he grouped his writings until that moment and the poemario When I fall , published posthumously in 1998 .
Ramón died in Boiro on January 12, 1998 for potassium cyanide poisoning , helped by his friend Ramona Maneiro . She was detained days later but was not tried for lack of evidence. Seven years later, once the crime had been prescribed, Ramona admitted on television to have given Ramon access to the poison that caused his death and to have recorded the video where he uttered his last words.
Work
He wrote two books:
- 1996 - Letters from the Hell , where he grouped his writings until that moment
- 1998 - When I Fall ( Ediciones Xerais , 1998)
Mar adentro
In 2004 , Alejandro Amenábar took to the cinema the history of Ramón with the film Sea in , carried out by Javier Bardem , that gave life to Ramón Sampedro, and Belén Rueda . The film was praised by the public and critics and received several awards, among them the Oscar for the best foreign film and 14 Goya awards .