You Only Live Twice

by Flavia Munn

The possibility of eternal life has fascinated writers for centuries. Now, increasing numbers of people are hoping for the chance to cheat death. Flavia Munn investigates

Few would say that teacher-turned-novelist Chrissie de Rivaz has not led a fulfilling life. She has travelled around the world and enjoyed a rewarding career teaching children with special needs before settling down in an idyllic town on the Cornish coastline.

From her spacious home perched high on the cliffs of Porthtowan, the 62year-old grandmother spends her days penning romantic fiction, walking her dogs and enjoying time with her family and many friends.

Like many hardworking people, she likes nothing better than to put her feet up in the evening and indulge in some "trashy" TV viewing.

For many weary souls settled on their warm sofas, this life may be enough. But not Chrissie, she wants to extend her lifetime.

But this does not mean exercise, healthy eating and shunning cigarettes and alcohol to avoid an early death.

It involves having her body frozen in the hope that future technology may allow her to be revived and awoken to a live a youthful new existence.

Chrissie is a member of Cryonics Europe, which was set up 18 months ago to provide information about life suspension. It is based in Brighton and has about 40 members including doctors and professors.

It is a subsidiary of the Cryonics Institute in the US, which preserves bodies at -196°C in liquid nitrogen in the hope they may one day be revived. Chrissie and her second husband John, 58, are signed up to have the £18,500 treatment when they die.

The mother-of-three said: "I think it's a better alternative to being dead, sent up the flue or put in the ground to rot. And I certainly don't like the idea of a grave that someone is forced to go and tidy up every so often.

"I have done a lot of things in my life, travelled around most of the world. This is just a chance to extend things.

"There is little chance of it working but we feel it is a chance worth taking."

She said when they die, their bodies must be prepared to a strict timescale, adding: "Everything must be done as quickly as possible. We have a recorder to document everything that happens in the event of any repercussions and two people to get the bodies ready"

A mobile perfusion unit will have been prepared in advance and once they are legally pronounced dead, it will begin the process of cooling the bodies. They will then be lowered into a bath of ice.
Blood circulation and breathing must be artificially restored as soon as possible.

They will then receive medication to protect the brain from lack of oxygen and their blood will be circulated through a heart-lung machine.

A kind of human antifreeze known as a Cryopectant [sic] then gradually replaces the blood to protect it against injury.

THEY are then covered in alcohol cooled to -79°C, which is dry ice temperature, for the next 48 hours before being transported to the US for long-term storage.

The couple will then begin the long wait for the technology to be invented to revive them.

Chrissie wears a pendant and carries cards in her wallet declaring her wishes.

She said: "I have seen some amazing changes in my lifetime. I didn't sit at a computer before I was nearly. 50 and now I'd be lost without it. If this has happened in the last 10 years, I think it will be incredibly exciting.

"If I awake, I will have a jolly good look around to see what changes there have been. A lot of people ask, ‘are you not horrified by all the changes there will be?', but the human being is a very adaptable organism.

"I will never do all the things in my lifetime that I want to do. I have always wanted to do a parachute jump and I would look forward to long cliff walks again."

Cryonics Fact File

The cryonics movement began in 1962 with the publication of Robert CW Ettinger's The Prospect of Immortality.
The Cryonics Institute was established in Michigan, US, in 1976.
For the first 10 years, the institute preserved around one member a year but now it is storing around four bodies annually.
About 50 new members are recruited each year.
The CI says it is an urban myth that film-maker Walt Disney had his body frozen and also denies that pop star Michael Jackson is a devotee.