A British woman with no terminal illness is flying to Switzerland to end her life at an assisted dying clinic after the death of her only son - becoming the first person to speak publicly about making the journey before it happens.

Wendy Duffy, 56, a former care worker from the West Midlands, has paid £10,000 to end her life at Pegasos, a Swiss assisted dying clinic, after losing her son Marcus, 23, four years ago. She has not been able to recover from his death despite years of therapy and antidepressants.

Speaking days before her death, Wendy said: "I won't change my mind. I know it's hard for you, sweetheart. It will be hard for everyone. But I want to die, and that's what I'm going to do. And I'll have a smile on my face when I do, so please be happy for me. My life; my choice."

She added: "I can't wait."

During an interview with Daily Mail journalist Jenny Johnson, Wendy explained how she lost Marcus in traumatic circumstances four years ago. He had fallen asleep on the sofa while eating a sandwich, hungover after a heavy night out. Wendy had been making herself lunch at the time - cheese and onion - when Marcus asked for one too.

"Throw a couple of those cherry tomatoes on mine," he said.

She did, cutting them in half as she always had. When she returned to the living room, she walked into every parent's nightmare.

"He was purple," she said. "I thought, 'It's his heart.'"

Wendy, who is medically trained, got Marcus to the floor and began CPR, screaming for help. Paramedics arrived and rushed him to hospital, where the worst news came: half a cherry tomato had been found lodged in his windpipe. It had taken specialist equipment to remove it.

"They think he must have fallen asleep when he still had food in his mouth. That's the only comfort, that there was no struggle," she said.

Starved of oxygen for too long, Marcus was brain dead. Wendy sat with him for five days before his life support was switched off. His organs were donated for transplant.

"Afterwards, I got a letter from the man who got his heart. He said that thanks to Marcus he was able to play with his kids again," she said. Another recipient was a four-year-old child. "That was a comfort, but it also ripped at me."

She went to the funeral home every day to sit with her son, playing through his Spotify list.

"In the funeral home, I went in every day, and just sat with him, playing through his Spotify list. I broke when I saw him in there. My boy, on a metal table. You can't come back from that, you know."

"That's when I died too, inside," she said. "I'm not the same person now as I was. I used to feel things. I don't care about anything any more. I exist. I don't live."

Marcus had been the centre of Wendy's world from the moment she discovered she was pregnant. Born into a large Irish family, Wendy never married and struggled for a decade to conceive. After years of fertility investigations that revealed damage to her fallopian tubes, she sought specialist help.

"I told the consultant that I wasn't greedy. If I could have one child, I would be the happiest woman in the world," she said.

In 1998, she got her miracle. "The day I discovered I was pregnant with Marcus was the happiest of my life."

After splitting from Marcus's father when the boy was around four, mother and son were inseparable. Wendy worked hard and saved for his future. Marcus developed a passion for music - hip-hop and grime - and was working towards a career in recording.

"I'd give anything to be shouting at him to turn the music down today," she said.

Following Marcus's death, Wendy underwent extensive NHS and private counselling and was prescribed antidepressants. Nine months after losing him, she attempted to take her own life with an overdose, planning it meticulously - "like a wedding" - leaving her affairs in order.

A friend raised the alarm after she failed to respond to messages. Police broke into her home to find a note neatly taped to the bedroom door. She spent two weeks on a ventilator, temporarily lost the use of her right arm, and still has no feeling in her little finger. She was warned she might have locked-in syndrome - left perilously close, in her own words, to being "a cabbage in a persistent vegetative state."

"I remember coming round and thinking, 'I've f***ed this up', and I don't want to go through that again. That's why I've gone for Pegasos," she said.

She was briefly admitted to a psychiatric ward voluntarily after her discharge from hospital but left after one night, describing the conditions as prison-like - a bed, a wardrobe with no door, no toothbrush, a dirty beaker of tea.

"I did try to get better," she said. "But you can take all the pills, you can go to all the counselling in the world - and I did. Ultimately, they can't help you. They don't have to live your life, and my life is agony. Even though I've got family, I've got friends, I've got my routines. I go to the park. I'm not lonely, but I still sit at night and I talk to Marcus, and I kiss the box I had made for his ashes and I say 'goodnight, sunshine' and I think 'I don't want to be in this world without you, Markie'. And I don't. It's as simple as that."

Pegasos is a Swiss assisted dying clinic that accepts psychiatric-only cases - where there is no physical illness - provided they meet strict criteria. The condition must be severe, long-lasting and treatment-resistant. Many Swiss clinics, including the better-known Dignitas, refuse such cases entirely.

Wendy first became aware of Pegasos in 2024 when it featured in an ITV investigation into the death of Alastair Hamilton, whose mother publicly called the clinic a "cowboy clinic." Despite the damning coverage, Wendy's reaction was immediate.

"Wow. This is what I need," she thought. She sent an email asking for information and submitted a formal application in early 2025.

The process involved more than a year of back-and-forth - interviews, forms and the submission of her full medical records and therapy history - conducted almost entirely remotely via email and WhatsApp. A panel of experts including psychiatrists assessed her case and approved it.

Under Swiss law, Wendy must administer the lethal medication herself.

"They put the line in but you've got to turn the doobra yourself to get it flowing. Then - ding, ding, ding - within a minute, you are in a coma, and a minute after that, you are gone," she explained.

She chose to go out listening to Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars singing Die With A Smile.

"You'll never be able to hear that song now without thinking of me, will you?" she said.

Wendy was not willing to take her own life in a way that would leave others traumatised.

"I could step off a motorway bridge or a tower block but that would leave anyone finding me dealing with that for the rest of their lives," she said. "I don't want to put anyone through that."

She waited until her two dogs had died of old age before setting a date at Pegasos. When the journalist offered to buy her a dog and leave it on her doorstep to give her a reason to live, she was unmoved.

"You could give me a house full of dogs. I'm doing this," she said.

Her care sector background, she added, has given her an ease with death that others might not have.

"Oh, I've seen death a million times. I've sat with so many people as they've gone. I've seen nice deaths, horrible deaths. I want a nice, gentle one."

Pegasos founder Ruedi Habegger confirmed Wendy had passed her final psychiatric assessment, carried out earlier this week.

"Wendy is very decided. I saw her at her hotel today, I had a long talk with her and with the psychiatrist that is going to see her a second time before the VAD [voluntary assisted death]. He is very confident that we are doing the right thing letting her go, that we should not stand in her way. She is absolutely not in a depressive state. I'm very experienced in this field. There are no worries with Wendy, none at all," he said.

He confirmed four of her siblings had been informed and given their blessing.

"Her family knew this was coming at one point or another. She is happy that she has their blessing. She feels content now, like a weight has been lifted," Habegger said.

Wendy said: "I have told them all and they support me. They are sad, but they know what this has done to me."

Wendy has arranged every detail. She has written letters to loved ones, chosen her outfit and selected her music. She will wear a t-shirt belonging to Marcus - "it still smells of him" - and has asked for the clinic's large windows to be left open so her spirit can be free. Her belongings, including her suitcase, will be donated to an animal charity.

She cannot donate her organs and will be cremated in Switzerland. Her ashes will be returned to her family in the UK and scattered alongside Marcus's at a park bench dedicated to him.

"I hate funerals anyway and don't want one. It's all planned," she said.

Wendy's siblings - four sisters and two brothers - reportedly know she applied to Pegasos but were not told the exact timing of her procedure, to protect them legally. Under UK law, anyone who assisted her - even driving her to the airport - could face investigation or prosecution.

Pegasos contacted her family directly. Wendy plans to call them from Switzerland to say goodbye.

"They will get it. They know. Honestly, 100 per cent, they know that I'm not happy, that I don't want to be here," she said.

Journalist Jenny Johnson spent time with Wendy in the days before her departure, finding a warm and funny woman who spoke about her impending death with the composure of someone heading on holiday - bags packed, house vacuumed, already at peace.

Wendy said she chose to go public to contribute to the assisted dying debate, the latest stage of which is due to take place in the House of Lords imminently.

"I'm not breaking the law. I don't feel I'm doing anything wrong. Yet for them, it's a mess," she said of her family's position.

She is aware her story will act as "a grenade lobbed into the assisted dying debate" - but is resolute.

"My life; my choice," she repeated. "I wish this was available in the UK, then I wouldn't have to go to Switzerland at all."

Her voluntary assisted death procedure is due to take place on Friday.

If you are affected by issues discussed within this article, you may contact Samaritans on 116 123 or visit samaritans.org