A 59-year-old woman with Lou Gehrig's disease became the 34th person to commit suicide with help from Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who brazenly wheeled her body into an emergency room.
Elizabeth Mertz of Cincinnati died Tuesday, a day after traveling to Michigan with her 30-year-old son, said Kevorkian's lawyer, Geof-frey Fieger.Kevorkian brought the body to Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital, said Dr. Michael Dargay, an emergency room doctor.
"They gave us information about the patient's name and age and told us that she had Lou Gehrig's disease and that was it, they took off. . . . We didn't have a chance to ask any questions," Dargay said.
Kevorkian has been acquitted of assisted-suicide charges in three trials. The man who prosecuted Kevorkian in two of those trials, Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson, was ousted Tuesday by voters in the Republican primary there.
Mertz's death was the 34th suicide Kevorkian has assisted since 1990 and the sixth since his most recent court victory on May 14.
It was also the second time since his latest acquittal that Kevorkian took a body into a hospital. In the past, Kevorkian relied on various methods that included leaving bodies in a van outside the medical examiner's office or hospitals, and having a friend or relative bring the body to the hospital.
Fieger said it was Mertz's decision to end her life before the disease did.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative nerve disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, "is a horrible disease that would have killed her. It chokes you to death," Fieger said. Four of the 33 other people who committed suicide with Kevorkian also had the disease.
Mertz had no vital signs and was pronounced dead shortly after she was brought to the hospital in a wheelchair late Tuesday night by Kevorkian, Dargay said. Kevorkian was accompanied by Dr. Georges Reding, a psychiatrist who has joined his cause, Fieger said.
Kevorkian declined to comment. Fieger said Mertz had been in contact with the retired pathologist "for some time."
"She fits all of Kevorkian's criteria. She had been examined by a psychiatrist here. She was fully mentally competent," Fieger said.