X-Message-Number: 20160 From: Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 17:45:02 EDT Subject: Pre-death cooling Hello All: I've been reading about procedures and have a question. Would it make sense to cool the brain of someone near death? That is, when someone was within an hour or so of heart stoppage, to place the head in an ice bath, with just the face out. Thus, on heart stoppage, the brain might have 45 minutes or so before damage set in. Let's imagine the death of a woman with terminal cancer. She is known to be near death, but in the morning she is coherent. She slips into delirium and sleep, and in the afternoon the nurses hear the death rattle and summon the family. She is on oxygen, but has a no-special-methods order in her living will. So the tubes are removed and she expires after just two or three breaths. I believe this is the way death often comes. It is promising for freezing the brain without deterioration. Under such circumstances it would seem ideal to cool the head before removing the oxygen. Then to have a doctor listen for the heart to stop, and immediately sign the death certificate. And then, just a minute later, starting cooldown. Even in this country (the USA) I think that would be legal. Has this been considered to allow freezing with minimum damage? Alan Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20160