"The hardest thing I've ever had to do is say goodbye to them. It just destroyed me," he said in the days before his death. His mother left a heartwrenching message on Saturday on the Facebook page of Mornington Fire Brigade, where her son was the officer in charge until his retirement last year. "To my beautiful son Troy, I feel so proud of you and all you have achieved not only in your working life but a wonderful family man," Barbara Spencer wrote. "My heart aches for you today. I am sending my love and hope you feel it in your heart my arms are wrapped around you they will be as you take your final journey. "Rest In Peace my Boy. I love you and will carry you in my heart forever. Mum xxxxxxxooooo"

Frankston SES members also paid tribute, as did the Australian Volunteer Coast Guard. "Fair winds and following seas from all at Coast Guard Western Port – our thoughts go out to all those touched by Troy, especially his family and members of Mornington CFA," Jeremy West posted. Mr Thornton desperately wished he have could legally end his life at home in Australia, with all those he loved around him. Australian firefighter Troy Thornton, pictured with his wife Christine, died in a Swiss euthanasia clinic. Credit:AAP Despite Victoria becoming the first state to legalise voluntary assisted dying, he didn't qualify.

He said he could not find two doctors willing to say with absolute certainty that he would die within 12 months, which in his case is a condition to access the legislation. That's where the Victorian laws fall down, Mr Thornton said. It left him with Switzerland as a solution to end his suffering, albeit without his children, his extended family and his loyal circle of friends. The career firefighter had spent his final day alive with a man he just met, Australia's so-called Dr Death, Philip Nitschke, who has led a years-long campaign for assisted dying laws in Australia. On his last day, they took in the sweeping expanse of the Rhine River that snakes through the northwest medieval city of Basel, before heading to the snow-covered peaks of the Alps.

Loading In the evening, Troy and his wife Christine sat down for a last supper with a life-long friend. "Doctors have always told me that you don't die of it, you die with it. You can live for quite a few years, but ... you end up being a vegetable," Mr Thornton said from Basel. "After a while it attacks different systems, breathing, swallowing. I'd end up drowning in my own mucous, that's what happens." He called his disease a "beast": one that takes everything away slowly.

"First you can't swim, then you can't run, walk, kick the footy with your children, you can't surf, drive; eventually it takes your career. Then you end up being a vegetable. "It's a pretty grim way to go out." He described every day as "like Groundhog Day" – filled with incessant vertigo, double vision and nausea. "I've just had enough, but unfortunately the laws, while they are a huge step in the right direction, they don't help me. They discount a lot of people." He urged Australian voters to tell their politicians what they want when it comes to end of life choices.

"When it's our life, we should have control. We should be able to choose if we are of sound mind. That's what I'd like to say." AAP, with Goya Dmytryshchak Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video