CRYONICS UK

CI's 65th Patient

CI's 65th patient was a "last-minute" case which
demonstrated many of the things that can go wrong
for people who sign-up at the last minute. We were initially
contacted about 8pm Eastern Standard Time and the
patient deanimated at about 4am EST the next morning.

The patient was a cancer victim living in the Los Angeles
area. Both her son and brother were intent on having her
cryopreserved, but did not have much familiarity with cryonics.
They chose a funeral home and hospital well before the time
they contacted us. They were unaware that we use cryoprotectants,
but agreed to a credit card charge for us to express-courier
our perfusate to their funeral home.

We will not accept a full cryopreservation fee on a credit
card and it takes the better part of a day to wire funds or
express-courier a cashier's check. Too late we learned that
the funeral home refused to do the perfusion, refused to allow
anyone else to do a perfusion on their premises and objected to
having two boxes of perfusate couriered to their address.

Our funeral directors' network cannot be utilized unless there
is a commitment that a paid-up Member is at immediate risk.
Without cash-in-hand we cannot be certain that a last-minute
case will not result in a last-minute change-of-mind, so we had to
find another funeral director ourside of our usual network.

I contacted my friend Russell Cheney, who was in Florida. Russell
has been a local response coordinator for Alcor in the Los Angeles
area. In addition to his recommendation of a funeral director Russell gave
me a list of phone numbers for Alcor volunteers in the LA area. I
was reluctant to contact these people, thinking that there might be
"political" ramifications to circumventing official Alcor approval. Later
I decided I would try to contact them the next day -- which proved to
be too late. I think a number of them would have agreed to stand-by
and apply ice and CPR upon pronouncement of death.

The Los Angeles funeral director was contacted and agreed to
perfuse, but later changed his mind. We ended-up perfusing in
San Diego with a funeral director who had done a previous case.
When the San Diego funeral home opened two boxes from the courier
company to begin the perfusion they discovered computer parts. The
parts had not been expected, although they did belong to the
funeral home (were correctly addressed) and were delivered by the
same courier company. The courier company found the boxes of
perfusate in a Los Angeles warehouse and sent them to San DIego.
In their defense they said that good service cannot be expected
when re-directing shipment twice en route.

As the general public learns more about cryonics I hope they also
get the message that cryonics arrangements are not to be made
while on a deathbed. Unfortunately, there are also many people who
know a great deal about cryonics who think that last-minute
arrangements are preferable for economic or other reasons. I think
such people are making a big mistake.

More details on the 65th patient can be found in the upcoming issue of
THE IMMORTALIST. For subscription information see

http://www.cryonics.org/info.html

-- Ben Best