Ever the soldier, former Royal Engineer Ryan Wallace planned his death with military precision.
asserted
Wallace → plan → precision
Over ten months, he bagged up his clothes for charity shops, used up his aftershaves (leaving a tiny amount in each bottle so his widow-to-be would always be able to smell ‘his’ scents), had his Bosnia service medal framed and made an exhaustive list of all his online accounts and passwords.
asserted
medal → bag → accounts
Ryan, 47, even ordered the ornamental urn for his ashes.
asserted
Ryan → order → ashes
‘It arrived before he left for Switzerland,’ says Marianne, Ryan’s widow.
asserted
Marianne → arrive → Switzerland
‘He wanted to place it in the garden.
asserted
He → want → garden
I said, “No, Ryan, please, no”, but he just wanted to make it easier for me.
asserted
it → say → me
‘At one point I found him researching puppies.
asserted
him → find → puppies
He thought I should get one, to keep me company when he was gone.
asserted
he → think → me
I said, “I don’t want a puppy, Ryan.
asserted
I → say → puppy
I want you, alive”.
asserted
I → want → you
’
And yet, when it came to it, even though he was not terminally ill, she felt she had no other option but to respect Ryan’s decision to die.
asserted
she → come → decision
This summer, on August 15, Marianne, 38, drove her husband to the airport and they both sobbed their goodbyes.
asserted
they → drive → goodbyes
Three days later, once the final paperwork had been completed, the former soldier died by assisted suicide in a Swiss clinic.
asserted
soldier → complete → clinic
Marianne wasn’t informed until the following day, but she tells me she ‘pretty much knew’ when the voluntary assisted death procedure had been completed.
asserted
procedure → inform → me
‘I knew that his phone would be wiped once he was gone, because that’s the clinic’s procedure.
asserted
that → know → ?
Marianne Wallace says her husband Ryan had been pleading for help to treat what he believed was an agonising physical reaction to medication
‘
asserted
he → say → medication
I had access to his email account and an email arrived on the Tuesday from his Find My iPhone saying his phone had been disabled.
asserted
phone → have → iPhone
It was only the next afternoon that I had an email from the clinic confirming he was gone.’
asserted
he → have → clinic
A week later, her husband’s ashes arrived at their Falkirk home, sent by Royal Mail.
asserted
ashes → arrive → Mail
Just over two months on, those ashes are sitting on a side table in this pristine living room.
asserted
ashes → sit → room
‘I’m thinking of a small celebration of his life, then the placing of his ashes in the garden.
asserted
I → think → garden
He designed the Zen garden himself.
asserted
He → design → garden
He loved his plants,’ says Marianne.
asserted
Marianne → love → plants
What has happened here is almost unthinkable.
asserted
happened → happen → ?
This is a man who served his country, and yet he died alone, abroad, and in circumstances that are anything but neat.
asserted
that → serve → circumstances
Marianne insists that Ryan’s last battle – the one he felt he couldn’t win – was with the NHS.
asserted
he → insist → NHS
For six years he had been pleading for help to treat what he believed was an agonising physical reaction to prescribed medication.
asserted
he → plead → medication
That medication had been offered as doctors tried to treat a range of mental health conditions, including the complex PTSD he had developed after serving in Bosnia as part of a UN peacekeeping squad.
asserted
he → offer → squad
Instead, claims Marianne, it left Ryan in unbearable pain.
uncertain
it → claim → pain
‘After he was prescribed these two medications together, in 2020, he started vomiting blood,’ she says.
asserted
she → prescribe → blood
He couldn’t eat, had issues with swallowing, he said it felt as if his eyeballs were on fire.
asserted
eyeballs → eat → fire
‘But from then, up until he died, we couldn’t get any answers.
asserted
we → die → answers
I believe we were gaslit.
asserted
we → believe → ?
‘Ryan felt they were branding him a hypochondriac – although they never used that word.
asserted
they → feel → word
They said he had “health anxiety”.
asserted
he → say → anxiety
I just don’t think they believed him.
asserted
they → think → him
‘Even when he told them he wanted to die – and was planning to die – he wasn’t taken seriously.
asserted
he → tell → them
Once, a psychiatric nurse said “you’re very chatty for someone who is suicidal”.
asserted
who → say → someone
Ryan came home and tried to take his life that day.
asserted
Ryan → come → life
I had to break the spare room door down to get to him.’
asserted
I → have → him
…and 98 more, not listed.
The Aporia
