After doctors said there was no treatment for Isabel Correa's debilitating spinal cord tumors other than painkillers, she told her family to expect her death.
Her family gathered at her Fresno home for a final farewell barbecue on the night before she boarded a plane to Michigan, where she killed herself Saturday with the help of Dr. Jack Kevorkian."She didn't believe in being around just because you had to wait until it was your turn to die," Correa's eldest daughter, Mary Erisman, said Sunday.
Correa, 60, died with Kevorkian a day after she met with him in a motel, where authorities charged into the room to break up their counseling session. Police said they stopped the session to "save" Correa. She was the 40th person known to have died with Kevorkian's help since 1990.
"None of us wanted this, but she said, `You know, if I don't do it like this, I'm going to find another way to do it if it means going to the street and stepping in front of a car,"' Erisman said.
Ten years ago, Correa began to feel a tingling and numbness that forced her to quit work as a fruit packer. Family members said the problem was two tumors at the base of her neck that put pressure on her spine. The condition worsened, and she eventually became completely dependent on her husband to eat, dress and bathe.
After three operations to remove the tumors were unsuccessful, her doctor said the only treatment left was painkillers.
Correa read every article she could about assisted suicide and joined the Hemlock and Neptune societies. Slowly, her family realized that she was serious about dying.
At the farewell barbecue, she met with her grandchildren one-by-one to explain that she would be going to Michigan the next day to die.
It wasn't until she headed to the car with her husband and brother-in-law that Erisman broke down. Erisman had chosen not to accompany her mother. Instead, she slipped a sympathy card and letter into her mother's luggage.
"It was just too much to bear to witness her doing it," Erisman said. "I just wanted to remember her alive."
Meanwhile, in Michigan, authorities defended their decision to confiscate chemicals but not detain or seek counseling for Correa on Friday when they interrupted a counseling session between her and Kevorkian at a Detroit-area hotel.
"We regret the fact she's no longer living . . . but I'm confident we did the right thing at the time," said Jeffrey Werner, the Bloomfield Township police chief.
Police could have detained Correa for up to 72 hours under Michigan law. But Werner said he did not take Correa for psychiatric evaluation because she was with her husband and brother-in-law and had at least three attorneys representing her. He said police believed she was with people who cared about her.