X-Message-Number: 15599 From: Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 21:36:30 EST Subject: Death-bed & post-mortem cases Comments on Fred Chamberlain's #15591 concerning suspensions without prior arrangements: 1. Of course Fred is right that your chances are very much worse if you are not signed up, with all arrangements in place, before death or before death appears imminent. Death-bed or post-mortem (even post-burial) queries are relatively frequent and usually nothing can be done in time. In addition to the logistical difficulties there is the potential for dissension among family or heirs, reducing the patient's chances and increasing risk of litigation. 2. Fred mentioned a case where a mortician working with "another organization" kept a patient at water ice temperature for three weeks. I am not aware of any case where a funeral director kept a CI member in ice water for three weeks, although I know that both CI and Alcor have accepted patients in worse condition than that. I need hardly remind Fred of the very bad circumstances under which people sometimes die, Alcor members as well as our own. Let me summarize our policy: First, we have an absolute rule against accepting disinterment cases. If someone has been buried, we will not accept that person regardless of other circumstances. One might ask, suppose the person had been buried in Michigan in dead of winter, the day after death, and only for one day--would his chances then be zero, relative to future repair technology, if he were cryopreserved? No--but we are obliged to balance all elements of the equation, and in cases of disinterment the chance of a legal or public relations boomerang are not acceptable, according to the judgment of our Board of Directors. Second, if we are dealing with a death-bed or post-mortem case and the people are unknown to us, we need to be convinced, both for ethical and legal reasons, that the decision was an informed one and the people had a chance to obtain outside advice and think it over and submit the contract to an attorney for review. This can mean, in some cases, that the next of kin must keep the patient in dry ice for an extended period at a local mortuary facility, while reviewing the paper work, arranging the funding, and coming to a decision. This is simply unavoidable if we want to protect CI and its current patients and members. We cannot take a patient without legal authorization or proper arrangements. That would leave CI open to potentially disastrous legal suits, financial difficulties, and public relations scandals, and tar all other cryonics organizations as well. Yes, there will in such cases be a great deal more damage than with an ideal suspension, but there will be a great deal less damage than with burial. For death-bed or post-mortem cases there is also the possibility of having a local mortician do washout and perfusion, and then keep the patient in dry ice until the final decision is made. Whether this is done, as compared with simply packing in dry ice immediately, will depend on circumstances and judgment. 3. Having said all that, it is still true that CI tries to be more responsive and more adaptable than others, and we have more than once been able to pull things together in a single day and even to get suspensions with minimal post mortem delay, despite lack of any previous contact with the family. Now the "three weeks in ice" case that Fred mentioned. The only case I can think of, in which Fred might have talked with our morticians, was one here in Scottsdale a couple of years ago. The family were previously unknown to us, so we suggested that our local mortuary staff (already supplied, equipped, and trained in order to be ready for Mae or me) might do washout and perfusion, and then keep the patient in dry ice until they could think things over, consult their advisors, study the contract, complete the paperwork, and obtain the funding, if they so decided. They accepted this suggestion, and the washout and perfusion were done the day of death. There was a delay of about an hour before the patient was put in the hospital morgue (cold), and another couple of hours before pickup by the mortuary people and washout and perfusion. Dry ice cooling followed. After roughly the amount of time Fred refers to, the decision was made and the paperwork and funding taken care of, and the patient was shipped to Michigan. I should emphasize that the patient was kept there that long because it took the individuals involved that long to arrange things legally and financially and give us their final decision and authorization to take the patient. Incidentally, the airlines would not accept that much dry ice for shipment, so we had the mortuary people take a large amount of water ice and cool it down to dry ice temperature, and had the patient shipped in that, in a well-insulated box, arriving safely in Michigan at close to dry ice temperature, and there of course we had the final cool-down to liquid nitrogen. Robert Ettinger Cryonics Institute Immortalist Society http://www.cryonics.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15599