Ray Gosling, one of those guys who introduces clips on the BBC, admitted in a documentary that he took a pillow and smothered his AIDS stricken partner. It made sense, then, that the BBC Inside Out show he was hosting was about euthanasia.
“I killed someone, once,” Gosling tells the camera. “He was a young chap, he had been my lover, and he got AIDS. In a hospital one afternoon,” doctors told him there was nothing they could do, and that’s when he “picked up the pillow and smothered him till he was dead.”
Yes, the police are now investigating, because assisted suicide isn’t exactly what authorities there call “legal.” And this was the follow-up EXCLUSIVE!!!
Shallow Superficial Queen
God bless this poor, old fart.
He looked better in the second video with the darker scarf and popped collar framing his handsome old face. Loved the raglan-sleeve camel hair coat.
I’m sure we could all learn a lot from him, at least I could.
alan brickman
This still has to be investigated….was there an insurance policy?….was the lover in on some facts….how old was the lover anyways…Vigilantism is still wrong…I know some of you are going to think only emotionally over this….p.s….Does he have
a book coming out??….
Sam
@alan brickman: ummm…no “vigilantism” going on in this situation.
tarxien
I don’t really understand this….large doses of diamorphine will deal with virtually all pain and is standard treatment for terminally ill patients. So I can’t see the doctors saying there was nothing they could do.
Having said that I do support voluntary euthanasia in extreme cases, but not by being smothered by a pillow.
andy_d
@tarxien: There is a little known and, thankfully, rarely seen complication in which the brainstem is affected by HIV. This can cause either of two things. The first, and most preferable, given the alternative, is that the autonomic functions (breathing, etc.) cease. The other is that the person affected is in constant excruciating pain which even the strongest drugs cannot ease. If this was the case in the young mand in question, the doctors were absolutely correct.
Keith Kimmel
@andy_d: I did not know that.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
Shoes I hope never have to walk in; but shoes I would walk in if necessary.
The time frame means everything. Until 1997/8, there were no effective anti-viral HIV treatments; there were only drugs that treated side effects. And even when the HIV treatment cocktail became available, many HIV patients were already too ill for the treatment to be effective.
HIV first slapped my face when my cousin died in 1985. During the next 12 years until the cocktail became available, I lost many friends and witnessed much suffering. Watching those close to you suffer is a difficult task yet the love and support one gives means so much that you do what you do. And witnessing all this while one is HIV+ too is a mind-fuck that is beyond explanation.
My boyfriend/now hubby and I made the same pact over 20 years ago. We got tested shortly after meeting in 1986; me poz, he neg (and remains so today). He has loved and supported me for so long. The worst part of all is that he is the one who would have to fulfill the pact: a nightmare for the remaining years of his life.
God bless Ray Gosling, hero to love.
[[PS: Shallow Superficial Queen: Its difficult to criticize your comments when you have given us in your moniker that your are shallow and superficial. Such a terrible story and you focus on the “old fart” and the scarfs and coats he wears. Indeed, you certainly could learn much from him; hope you do.]]
Fitz
Suffocating someone with a pillow does not seem like something I could do or would want done. I think the thing is just to get a reasonable medical team that will script you for plenty of opiates and benzos. I don’t think it is uncommon. PS: even you young healthy boys.. for crying out loud, get a Medical Directive Form filled out. Your doc’s office has one, probably. Or even just write something down and have it witnessed. Crap happens.