X-Message-Number: 1261 Subject: CRYONICS American Cryonics News September 92 1/2 From: (Edgar W. Swank) Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 07:21:02 PDT AMERICAN CRYONICS NEWS (Part 1 of 2) [Reprinted from the September 92 Immortalist] The Suspension of Lynne Marsh by Jim Yount For a number of years Lynne Marsh had been confined to a nursing home in San Francisco (see "Lovely Lynne is Sleeping" by Dick Marsh, this issue). Although Lynne was obviously not in good health, there was little warning of impending death. Here is my account of her suspension. I received a call at about 10:45 a.m. from Lynne's husband Dick who said Lynne's doctor had just telephoned him with bad news. Lynne had suffered a seizure and was being taken to Kaiser Hospital for a catscan. Dick was to ride with his wife in the ambulance from the nursing home (within a few blocks of Dick's home) to the hospital. I gave him the ACS 800 number and the Trans Time number and suggested he call when he knew more. (The advantage of 800 emergency numbers is that telephone credit cards or change is notnecessary.) I then called Trans Time Board Secretary Judy Segall and told her of Lynne's medical problem. ACS Governor and Board Secretary Carmen Brewer came into the office about 11:30; we discussed the events and Carmen agreed to call various people to put them on alert. Carmen and Maria Santana, the ACS Office Manager, watched the phones while I went out on an important errand. At about 1:00p.m. I called the office from my home. Carmen said Dick had called to report that Lynne was in bad shape and could die anytime. Carmen had called Jerry White who was available to go to San Francisco on stand)by. I called John Day who also immediately agreed to go on standby. (Both John and Jerry have participated in virtually all of the suspensions involving the American Cryonics Society since our first suspensions in 1974. They are good people to have in your corner.) I followed up on Carmen's call to Jerry by calling him myself; Jerry said he would probably go directly to the hospital. John Day was to meet me at the Sunnyvale ACS office. I talked with Dick by phone and got his authorization for a standby. I told him I or others would be over there soon. Dick said he was very hungry, not having eaten at all that day. I called Maria and asked her tomake up sandwiches from the fixings (most of which were Maria's) we had in our office refrigerator. She also packaged several emergency instruction manuals for Jerry, John, and me. She checked them to determine that all information was current including the latest list of suspension personnel and their phone numbers. She put the manuals together with our emergency response supplies which includes several bag-resuscitators. The bag-resuscitators are available to any cryonicist for $35.00 each from the American Cryonics Society, P.O. Box 1509, Cupertino, CA 95015. While I was on the phone my wife Annie took the car out and gassed it up. Annie also prepared a thermos bottle of coffee. Although neither Carmen nor I had yet been able to get TransTime President Art Quaife onthe phone, I reached Judy Segall who said she had talked with Art, who knew about the emergency. I stopped by Seven-Eleven onthe way to the office and bought three 7-pound bags ofice (as much as my freezer chest would hold). Jerry had also said he would get ice. I also picked up some candy bars and a chicken sandwich for myself. When I got to the office John was there waiting and Carmen was busy making phone calls. She had called a physician who agreed to help us in this case. This cooperating doctor has worked with ACS and Trans Time before on suspensions and was instrumental quite recently in getting the body of Carol, an ACS suspension member, released from the county coroner without autopsy. Carmen had also had additional discussions with Paul Segall and Judy Segall. Maria had called the office of ACS President Avi Ben)Abraham and left a message. Avi was out of the office and could not be reached directly. Carmen and I then made up a list of other people to call and ask to stand by. We started a log ofthe suspension preparations. Carmen phoned Art Quaife and we both talked with him. I had been concerned with whether or not the pick-up service had been called. Art said he had called them. They were to stop by Trans Time and pick up some things such as 150 pounds ofice. I suggested it would be better to have the pick-up service go directly to the hospital rather than coming to Trans Time first. Jerry White would have ice and I had some too. Art pointed out the importance of having plenty of ice and said he would probably stay with his original plan. Art said that Judy and Paul and possibly Trans Time Vice Presi-dent Hal Sternberg were going to go to the hospital so there was no need for Jerry, John, or me to go. I made the point that it was better to have too many rather than too few people and that time was critical at a death with many factors such as traffic jams, which could result in delays. I talked with Paul who suggested we call long-time cryonicist Jack Zinn. Jack is a past President of ACS and a practicing California attorney. I concurred. Jack later called me and made some suggestions about ways to gain custody of Lynne's body quickly, in case of bureaucratic hassle. We also called ACS attorney Jim Bianchi. Carmen and I talked further with our cooperating physician. Our physician had been in contact with Lynne's doctor and also talked with Dick (by phone). Our physician said the prognosis was not good but that the hospital would cooperate with us. We arranged for me to pick her up at a local hospital where she was then on duty, at the completion of her shift. Maria phoned the hospital in San Francisco and got directions and photocopied portions of our San Francisco maps and drew in the best route. These maps were for John and anyone else who might be called on should this turn into a long stand)by. John Day took the supplies, sandwiches, and ice and took off for Kaiser. We spoke by phone with Jerry, who was just getting ready to leave. At about 5:30 I left theoffice. Carmen was still handling the phones but would transfer our line to her home later on. I picked up our doctor at the local hospital which was about ten miles from our office at 6:10p.m., our agreed meeting time. It is about 55 miles to San Francisco Kaiser Hospital from the local hospital where we met. We took highway 280, a slightly longer but usually faster route. Our physician had been listening to traffic reports so we could avoid traffic jams. Since there were two of us, we could use the commute lane. We made good time, traveling about 70 mph most of the way. We stopped briefly to put up the convertible top and get a soft drink from the trunk. We took highway 1 through Golden Gate Park to Geary Street, then Geary to the hospital. This route proved to be fairly fast. We arrived at Kaiser in San Francisco about an hour after leaving Kaiser Santa Clara, not bad at all for that time of day. We parked in an employee lot near the emergency entrance. I later learned the lot we used was used mostly by the hospital security. When we arrived at the seventh floor Jerry White came running up to tell us Lynne had just died. John, Jerry, Dick, Paul and Judy (who had also just arrived) were there, and a young man from the pick-up service was waiting just outside Lynne's room. Our physician went to check in with the Kaiser people and I went with Jerry to see Lynne. Dick was bent over Lynne crying. I put my arm around him and told him that I had brought our co-operating physician (also agood friend of Dick's) and that Lynne was going to get a really good suspension. Our doctor arrived shortly and also reassured Dick, then quickly examined Lynne. She [the doctor] asked for heparin and syringe. John had the heparin but had left the syringes in his car. Our physician said she coulduse a Kaiser Hospital hypodermic which would be quicker than John going to his car. After getting the syringe from Kaiser, our doctor injected the heparin directly into Lynne's heart. She also injected heparin intravenously. She started oxygen and got a saline drip going to keep the line going into Lynne open. Jerry video taped much of this. All this was far from instantaneous. There were considerable time delays. Paul started chest compressions to help circulate the heparin through Lynne's body. Hospital personnel filled out forms to release the body. Most of the information for the forms was supplied by the pick-up service man. John told me that the transport service had brought forms from Trans Time for Dick to sign. They were agreements between Dick and Trans Time authorizing Trans Time both to suspend Lynne and to maintain her in liquid nitrogen. ACS was to have no role. Although my understanding was that such forms were under developmentfor use in cases where Trans Time procures clients independ-ently of ACS, neither Dick nor I had previously seen or reviewed them. The man from the mortuary pick-up service said he had had to leave his stretcher behind since there was not enough room in his van for "that big box" and the stretcher. The box he referred to is a Transportable Cooler with a removable lining (see page 4 of the March, 1992 edition of The Immortalist for a complete description). I asked some Kaiser Hospital security men to help procure a Kaiser stretcher, which they said they could get from the morgue. This was the first I had heard that the Transportable Cooler, which the mortuary pick-up man described as going all the way to the ceiling of the van, was to be used. Because the box was so high it would make it impossible to do resuscitation with the patient in such a box. The man from the transport service and I looked it over and removed it from the van. After a stretcher was obtained, Lynne was brought down to the van. Our physician maintained chest compressions while there was a final discussion on the advisability of putting Lynne in the box. The liner was removed from the box frame. Lynne was placed on the liner and ice put around her. Our physician and Paul rode in thepick-up Van to maintain resuscitation. I walked Judy to her car, then talked to the morgue security man to make sure that the box frame of the cool-down chest would be safe until it could be picked up. Then I drove over to the Trans Time facility in Oakland. When I arrived at the facility the crew from the hospital (previously noted) plus Art Quaife, Eddie Monroe, Shawn Shermer, Harold (Frosty) Waitz and Norm Lewis were there. Paul and our doctor were giving Lynne resuscitation. I joined them and worked into a routine of either operating the bag or compressing the chest. Judy also helped. Shawn was setting up for surgery, Hal was trying to thaw perfusate, and Frosty was setting up for perfusion. John acted as recorder and kept a written log of the procedure. Jerry asked that I take video footage of the suspension and left his camera with me and went on home after an hour or so. When the resuscitation was interrupted for the surgery I took video footage until therewas some objection by the physician (perhaps she found it distracting) so I stopped. I then observed the procedure and made myself available for errands. The surgery and perfusion were complete by 3:30 at which time our cooperating physician and I left. The crew was just preparing to transfer Lynne into a temperature chest for further cooling with dry ice. We were very fortunate to have use of the services of our cooperating physician in this suspension as well as so many other people who were at the hospital or facility, or helped or were willing to help in other ways. Although there is room for much improvement, Trans Time personnel certainly did a good job, perhaps the best ever and deserve a pat on the back. Congratulations shouldn't stop there, however. ACS volunteers, as usual, were the first on the scene. We also did much to alert and assemble personnel and were prepared for a long stand-by should it have proved necessary, as it was for Carol, our previous member suspended. Lynne may someday offer her ownthanks and congratulations. ACS Featured in Russian Newspaper by Jerry White ACS is featured in the July 1992 issue of the newspaper We, a joint venture of Hearst Publishing and Izvestiya which appears in both English and Russian editions. The article, titled "Chance to cheat death" (in Russian) and "Deep freeze preserves hope for the terminally ill" (English edition) covers about half a page in the science section and includes a large photo of an encapsulation at the Alcor facility. The article is very favorable. ACS President Avi Ben)Abraham and Vice-President Jim Yount were interviewed and are quoted. Paul Segall, President of Bio Time, was also interviewed; he discussed suspended animation using blood substitutes. A noncryonicist, Estelle Ramey, 75, a gerontologist and professor at Georgetown, commented that "I have seen changes in molecular biology that were just unimaginable when I was in school. I think the field is wide open." ACS is planning ways to followup this good exposure by developing contacts and ventures in Russia. The article is also valuable for containing numerous vocabulary equivalents in Russian for technical terms relating to cryonics specifically and life extension in general. -- (Edgar W. Swank) SPECTROX SYSTEMS +1.408.252.1005 Silicon Valley, Ca Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1261