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A neurologist tried to stop a Belgian woman traumatised by the Islamic State‘s depraved terror attack at Brussels airport from being allowed to kill herself at a euthanasia clinic, arguing that more could have been done to help her – but was overruled when the 23-year-old’s mother supported her, it has emerged.
Shanti De Corte suffered with depression and PTSD after ISIS lunatics detonated a bomb at Brussels airport in Zaventem which killed 32 people and injured more than 300 in March 2016.
The then 17-year-old escaped the explosion but was wracked by constant panic attacks – and despite attending a psychiatric hospital in Antwerp for rehabilitation and taking a range of anti-depressant medications, she was unable to shake the spectre of depression and attempted suicide on two different occasions in 2018 and 2020.
Miss De Corte died on May 7 this year after two psychiatrists approved her request to be euthanised, her mother Marielle revealed.
Paul Deltenre, a neurologist from the CHU Brugmann academic clinical hospital in Brussels, appears to have intervened in the case to stop the 23-year-old from being allowed to kill herself, suggesting that euthanasia should not have taken place because other proposals for care had been made and claiming that the decision ‘was made prematurely’.
However, it seems that he was overruled when Miss De Corte’s mother backed her daughter’s choice, according to news outlet 7Sur7.
The Antwerp public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation but then closed the case, concluding that the procedure governing euthanasia had been respected.
Shanti De Corte never recovered from the psychological trauma after she narrowly escaped the 2016 Brussels airport attack
Shanti De Corte (left) is pictured with a friend in this image shared to a tribute page
Describing how she backed her daughter’s choice, the 23-year-old’s mother Marielle told Belgian outlet VRT: ‘I told her that I did not want to lose her, but that I understood her question in some way. Then she made the click that she wanted to say goodbye to her family and friends and not just want to get out of life’
In her final tragic yet touching post on social media, Shanti wrote: ‘I was laughing and crying. Until the last day. I loved and was allowed to feel what true love is. ‘Now I will go away in peace. Know that I miss you already’
A plume of smoke rises over Brussels airport after the explosion of a third device in Zaventem Bruxelles International Airport
The 23-year-old’s mother told Belgian outlet VRT: ‘I told her that I did not want to lose her, but that I understood her question in some way. Then she made the click that she wanted to say goodbye to her family and friends and not just want to get out of life.
‘Something like this is really very difficult, but at that moment it is the only thing you can do for your child as a mother. Be there for her and try to support her.
‘Somehow you keep hoping that it will get even better, that she will wouldn’t do it, but at the same time I felt from the start that this was really what she wanted, I realised very well that the way Shanti has had to live in recent years is to survive, that that was not an option to continue like this to live.’
Miss De Corte frequently recalled her experiences following the bombing on social media and spoke of her struggles dealing with her declining mental health.
In one post she wrote: ‘I get a few medications for breakfast. And up to 11 antidepressants a day. I couldn’t live without it. With all the medications I take, I feel like a ghost that can’t feel anything anymore. Maybe there were other solutions than medications.’
The 23-year-old had been suffering from severe depression before she opted to end her life, according to her school psychologist.
She told RTBF: ‘There are some students who react worse than others to traumatic events. And having interviewed her twice, I can tell you that Shanti De Corte was one of those fragile students.’
The psychologist referred Shanti to a psychiatric hospital in Antwerp, which the young woman regularly attended. But in 2018, she tried to commit suicide after a sudden decline in her mental state following an altercation with another patient who sexually assaulted her.
In 2020 she made another unsuccessful suicide attempt, after which she reached out to an organisation that defends the right to ‘death in dignity’.
According to RTBF she asked them to perform euthanasia for ‘unbearable psychiatric suffering’.
Pictured: People inside Zaventem Airport after a blast in March 2016
Passengers were evacuated from the airport after the terrorist attack in March 2016
Policemen and soldiers check Brussels airport at its entrance after the attacks
Euthanasia, defined as the practice of intentionally ending a person’s life to relieve pain and suffering, is legal in Belgium for an individual who is in ‘a medically futile condition of constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated, resulting from a serious and incurable disorder caused by illness or accident’.
Miss De Corte’s formal request to be euthanised was approved earlier this year by two psychiatrists, according to RTBF.
‘The woman was euthanised on May 7, 2022, surrounded by her family,’ the report said.
In one final touching post on social media the day she was euthanised, Miss De Corte wrote: ‘I was laughing and crying. Until the last day. I loved and was allowed to feel what true love is. Now I will go away in peace. Know that I miss you already.’
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