Death
Kerry Packer died of kidney failure on 26 December 2005, aged 68 years at home in Sydney, Australia, with his family by his bedside. Knowing that his health was failing, he instructed his doctors not to treat him with curative intent or by artificially prolonging his life with dialysis. He told his cardiologist earlier in the week that he was "running out of petrol" and wanted to "die with dignity".
Packer's death was announced to the public by broadcaster Richard Wilkins, on the Nine Network's Today program:
- "Mrs Kerry Packer and her children James and Gretel sadly report the passing last evening of her husband and their father Kerry. He died peacefully at home with his family at his bedside. He will be lovingly remembered and missed enormously. Arrangements for a memorial service will be announced."
His private funeral service was held on 30 December 2005 at the family's country retreat, Ellerston, near Scone in the Hunter Valley.
In 2007, The Chaser's Andrew Hansen made passing mention of Packer's death in "The Eulogy Song", which was one of The Chaser's more controversial and well-known stunts.
Read more about this topic: Kerry Packer
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“We achieve “active” mastery over illness and death by delegating all responsibility for their management to physicians, and by exiling the sick and the dying to hospitals. But hospitals serve the convenience of staff not patients: we cannot be properly ill in a hospital, nor die in one decently; we can do so only among those who love and value us. The result is the institutionalized dehumanization of the ill, characteristic of our age.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“There is no sorrow more grievous than the death of one’s spirit.”
—Chinese proverb.
Zhaungzi.
“What is history? Its beginning is that of the centuries of systematic work devoted to the solution of the enigma of death, so that death itself may eventually be overcome. That is why people write symphonies, and why they discover mathematical infinity and electromagnetic waves.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)