Euthanasia: to die to Live

Ramón Sampedro, a fifty-year-old Galician, after twenty five years in bed due to an accident that left him tetraplegic, made the decision to end this painful situation legally, and thus became the first Spanish citizen to apply for active euthanasia through the law courts. Laura Palmés made this “Linea 900” story starting from an exclusive interview taped two month before the trial hearing, which was widely publicised in the national press and in which Ramón Sampedro expressly manifested his desire to die in order to live differently. From his bed, which he doesn´t want to leave, he can see the sea and the fields and he escapes by dreaming but, when he wakes up, recalls the day his neck broke.