An Australian quadriplegic who last month won the landmark legal right to starve himself to death by preventing his carers from feeding him died on Monday, his family said.
Severely paralysed Christian Rossiter, 49, died in a nursing home in the western city of Perth in the early hours of Monday after developing a chest infection, his brother Tim Rossiter said in a statement.
In the historic ruling, a court ruled in August that Rossiter, a former stockbroker and outdoor adventurer who became a quadriplegic following two separate accidents, had the right to refuse to be fed.
Western Australia's chief judge Wayne Martin said Rossiter had the right to direct his own treatment and that his carers, Brightwater Care Group, would not be criminally responsible if it complied with his wishes.
Rossiter had asked the Brightwater Care Group at least 40 times to stop feeding and hydrating him through a tube to his stomach before he took the case to court.
Rossiter had pleaded to be allowed to end his suffering, which he described as a "living hell".
"I'm Christian Rossiter and I'd like to die. I am a prisoner in my own body. I can't move," he told reporters. "I have no fear of death -- just pain. I only fear pain."