After a lengthy legal battle, an Italian man became the first in the country to be permitted to die by medically assisted suicide . The 44-year-old man died  in Italy on Thursday, in the first case of its kind in the country.

While it is technically against the law to help someone take their own life in Italy, the country’s Constitutional Court ruled in 2019 that there could be certain exceptions — albeit under strict conditions.

The man, identified after his death as Federico Carboni, passed away on Thursday after self-administering a lethal drug cocktail through a special machine.
His family and friends were with him when he passed.

Carboni’s death was announced by the Luca Coscioni Association, a euthanasia campaign group which helped him push for his case with courts and health authorities.

The 44-year-old former truck driver, became paralyzed from the neck down 10 years ago following a traffic accident.  “I don’t deny that I regret saying goodbye to life,” he was quoted as saying prior to his death by the Luca Coscioni Association.

“I did everything I could to live as best as I could and try to make the most of my disability, but I am now at the end of my tether, both mentally and physically,” Carboni said.

As a tetraplegic, he required 24-hour care, leaving him reliant on others and with no independence, he said — making him feel like a “boat drifting on the ocean.”

Tags: aid in dying, assisted death, Assisted Suicide, Derek Humphry, Euthanasia, Final Exit, physician-assisted suicide, right to die