Last Updated on October 9, 2022
A young woman who survived an ISIS bombing chose to be euthanized as opposed to living with trauma from the attack, according to a report from The Sun. Shanti De Corte was a 17-year-old high school senior who was traveling with her classmates at Brussels Airport when ISIS terrorists detonated a bomb in March 2016. The blast, along with two others that occurred at a Brussels subway station, left 32 dead and more than 300 injured.
De Corte was not injured in the attacks, but she suffered from repeated panic attacks and depression in the years following the attacks. She attempted suicide twice, in 2018 and 2020, and had repeatedly posted about her mental health struggles on social media.
“With all the medications I take, I feel like a ghost that can’t feel anything anymore. Maybe there were other solutions than medications,” she wrote in one post, according to the Belgian news site RTBF. De Corte underwent rehabilitation treatment and took multiple anti-depressant medications in the years following the attack.
The ISIS attack survivor, then 23, chose to be euthanized earlier this year, which is legal in Belgium. Her request was fulfilled on May 7 after two psychiatrists signed off on her request.
The story was widely reported earlier this week when De Corte’s mother opted to share details with the public. “That day really cracked her, she never felt safe after that,” the young woman’s mother told Belgian outlet VRT.
Antwerp prosecutors began an investigation into De Corte’s case after Paul Deltenre, a neurologist at the CHU Brugmann academic clinical hospital in Brussels, made complaints that the young woman’s decision to end her life “was made prematurely.”
The case was closed after it found that no violations had been made in processing her request to be euthanized, the Belgian news outlet 7Sur7 reported.
