Freezing People is (Not) Easy by Bob Nelson & Kenneth Bly & Sally Magaña PhD

Author:Bob Nelson & Kenneth Bly & Sally Magaña, PhD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2014-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Vacuum and Vanity

For two years, Genevieve de la Poterie and Mildred Harrington remained in dry ice—a source of ever-present torture for me, since they needed a less-tenuous, more stable home. Their current accommodation was a four-inch-thick Styrofoam cold-storage box with a one-inch-thick wood exterior. We thought this adequate to hold a human body biologically intact for up to five years, but the dry ice needed to fill the box weekly was prohibitively expensive. I had a solution though. Steven Mandell was in a cryonics capsule, but I couldn’t locate his mother and no one was paying for his liquid nitrogen. I didn’t want a replay of the first capsule meltdown. I knew I was repeating so many of my earlier actions that had led to failure the first time. Desperate to save all three patients, I decided to open Steven’s capsule and place Genevieve’s and Mildred’s bodies inside with him.

For the first time since I had begun cryonics, I dreamed about death. I had a nightmare that I was laughing and having a great time. Meanwhile I heard a little weak voice say, “Mommy! Daddy! Mr. Bob!” With the feeble voice came the echo of little fists clanging against metal. It was Genevieve crying out for us. She was buried alive, slowly warming and slowly dying. “Mommy! Daddy!” No one had rescued her. I pictured the Grim Reaper sneaking toward her, bringing decay and permanent loss with every inch. The shadow of death was coming closer and closer to her sweet face. I tried to reach her, but I was surrounded by a fog of liquid nitrogen vapor. I felt my way through, but her voice was dissolving into the mist. I finally reached her, finally felt a loose tendril of her hair, and had a momentary flash of relief. Then hideous guilt washed over me as I realized she was no longer Genevieve but rather a crumpled, sad mass that used to be Genevieve.

Breathless, I sat up in my bed and clawed at my covers, whimpering and breathing loud and fast. My bedroom seemed strange now—like it didn’t belong to me. Eerie light from the street lamps streamed through the window as Elaine slept beside me. The recesses of my brain could still hear the banging sound inside a metal capsule. I looked around my room, scared and worried about what I might have done and what I hadn’t yet accomplished. Genevieve needed me and I couldn’t fail her. I would protect her and all my frozen heroes from the shadow of death.

With little funds to continue, my only prayer was to somehow find the money to keep Steven’s capsule functioning until help fell from heaven! I looked around me at the cemetery with its vast sea of headstones and felt sure that heaven still existed. Despite the inevitability of death, I wanted to delay it as long as possible. Cryonics for me was about extending life—not about immortality.

After two weeks of preparation, I was a nervous wreck on the day of the patient transfer.

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