On Sept. 24, the third anniversary of his accident, Humbert's book, Je Vous Demande le Droit de Mourir (I ask the right to die), landed in Paris stores—and his mother granted him his wish. Marie Humbert, 48, who had campaigned on talk shows and even won an audience with President Jacques Chirac to plead that her son be allowed to die legally, injected an overdose of barbiturates into his intravenous drip, sending him into a coma. As doctors tried to keep Vincent alive, a riveted nation tuned in to hourly updates on radio and TV and rallied to support his mother, who was promptly arrested. Outraged citizens jammed the hospital switchboard to demand that the doctors allow Vincent to go in peace. Two days later, they did. "I am happy, happy that my brother is finally free," Laurent Humbert, 28, told reporters. "It is an enormous relief."
Beyond his hospital room, however, Vincent's story is far from over. Though legal in Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, euthanasia is outlawed in France, despite surveys that show 88 percent of the population in favor of it. Now France's National Assembly has announced it will debate a euthanasia law. Meanwhile, Marie Humbert, who at press time had not been charged, awaits her fate in a psychiatric hospital. "She didn't commit a crime," says Vincent's friend and fellow firefighter Yves Gasnier. "What she did was a gesture of love."
The youngest of three brothers, Vincent grew up in Francheville, a small village in northern France where his parents, Marie and Francis (who later separated), ran the local grocery store. An independent, fun-loving teen, he dreamed of becoming a Paris fireman and began volunteering at the local station when he was 16. On the night of the accident, he was heading home from his shift when he swerved to avoid an oncoming truck on a narrow road. His tire burst, propelling him into the other vehicle's path. "It took us 2½ hours to get him out of the car," Gasnier, 56, recalls. "I was sure he was dead."
After nine months in a coma, Vincent came to, but was moved to an intensive-care facility in Berck-sur-Mer, several hours from his family home. Marie moved with him, taking a small studio apartment near the hospital and working odd jobs to pay the rent. Every afternoon she visited his dark room—which was decorated with stuffed animals and a Bob Marley poster—to talk, play music and massage his mutilated body. "If I am not there, then he is lost," she told reporters. "He will suffer twice as much." A few months after Vincent regained consciousness, Marie noticed he could move his right thumb. It took them six months to develop a method of communicating: as she recited the alphabet, he would press his thumb into her hand to spell out words. In May 2002 he conveyed his first message: "Mom, I am happy you are here."
Four months later Vincent persuaded her to help him end his life. Seeking a legal way out, he wrote to President Chirac, who eventually met for three hours with Marie but said he could do nothing for her son. "He must once again find his zest for life," the president told her. Replied Vincent: "That was not the right response." The pair could not afford to travel to another country where euthanasia was legal. The only option left, they decided, was for Marie to kill him herself.
With the help of journalist Frederic Veille, Vincent set about writing his book. A week before it was published, Marie hit the media circuit. "I don't want to kill my son, I want to help him to commit suicide," she told reporters. "The difference, in my heart, is very important." That may not matter to a judge and jury who could sentence her to life in prison, though historically France's judicial system has dealt gently with cases of mercy killing. For his part, Vincent made it clear in his book, already a bestseller, that he wouldn't want his mother judged. "What she has done for me," he wrote, "is surely the most beautiful proof of love in the world."
SUSAN HORSBURGH
Dietlind Lerner and Bryce Corbett in Paris
- Contributors:
- Dietlind Lerner,
- Bryce Corbett.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
