A British soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has ended his life by assisted suicide in Switzerland after six years of failing to be provided with the treatment he needed and despite pleas from his wife to him to stay alive.
Ryan Wallace, a former soldier in the Royal Engineers, ended his life in a Swiss assisted suicide clinic in August 2026 after reportedly being unable to access treatment for his complex mental and physical health problems on the NHS.
According to Ryan’s wife, Marianne, Ryan believed he had been suffering from a painful physical reaction to medication for six years, which had never been properly treated. The medication had been prescribed to Ryan to attempt to treat his mental health conditions, which included PTSD from a military operation in Bosnia.
Marianne said that the medication did not help him, but rather gave him further health conditions, including “vomiting blood”.
“He was in agony. He couldn’t eat, had issues with swallowing, he said it felt as if his eyeballs were on fire”, she added, explaining that Ryan believed medical professionals thought he had hypochondria and health anxiety.
Ryan was eventually diagnosed with multiple mental health conditions in addition to PTSD, including bipolar disorder, complex personality disorder, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, Marianne says his physical pain is what made him want to end his life.
In December 2025, Ryan paid a deposit to the Swiss assisted suicide clinic Athanasios in Basel, which does not require an individual to have a terminal illness in order to end their life.
Marianne said that Ryan made a lot of preparations in advance of ending his life, including ordering the urn that he wanted his ashes to be kept in.
“At one point I found him researching puppies. He thought I should get one, to keep me company when he was gone. I said, ‘I don’t want a puppy, Ryan. I want you, alive’”, Marianne said.
Ryan told Marianne, his family, and even his doctors that he was going to end his life by assisted suicide in Switzerland, with several of them even being made aware of the specific day he was going to end his life.
Marianne had emailed the chief executive of NHS Forth Valley involved with Ryan’s care to plead for help to stop him from ending his life while he packed up his belongings.
She revealed that Ryan’s general practitioner last saw him within days of him flying to Switzerland to end his life, saying that she would have had Ryan sectioned if she could, but she believed that he was of sound mind.
Marianne said that the general practitioner telephoned her on the day of Ryan’s death, crying, asking if he had gone through with it, apparently saying, “This should never have been allowed to happen to Ryan”.
