British Pensioner Being Frozen After He Dies In Hope Of Being Revived

A British pensioner says they plan on having their body frozen after they die in the hope that future generations will be able to bring them back to life.

The unnamed man, from Nottingham, has signed up to a programme which gives patients the opportunity to have their body cryogenically frozen right after they die.

Described as a 'life extension', the process sees the individual's blood replaced with anti-freeze. His body will then be cooled and transported to the US where it will be placed in liquid nitrogen at -196C.

According to reports in the Metro, the 73-year-old will be placed in a facility in Arizona and where he expects to be in his 'pause' for potentially thousands of years until humanity has the technology to bring him back.

Speaking about the venture, the man said: "The number of people signing up to cryonics isn't booming but it is increasing all the time, it has been for many years.

"More people are taking up the option because there is less belief in religion these days and there's a gradual realisation that with the constant advances in science, cryonics will work.

Google Street View

"It's advancing at an exponential rate, it always has.

"Compare the time from the discovery of electricity or the invention of mobile phones to now, and then look to the end of this century.

"The advantage is extending your life for possibly a very long time. It's a way of taking advantage of technology that will be available in the future.

"Part of our role with Cryonics UK is to help you get there by cooling your body down as quickly as possible and doing our best to preserve it by using cryogenic preservatives to replace the blood and most of the water in your body so you won't suffer ice crystals in your brain, though in the future there will probably be a way of getting around that.

"Then we put your body in a large casket with dry ice that's minus seventy-nine degrees and ship it off to America."

PA

According to Alcor, the firm behind the process, cryo-stasis is not a new phenomenon, with people trying to prolong their lives ever since the 1960s.

The company states that the majority of patients usually need a life-insurance policy of $200,000 for a 'whole-body cryopreservation or $80,000 for neuro cryopreservation'.

And it is vital that the procedure begins within 'the first one or two minutes after the heart stops, and preferably within 15 minutes'.

It says: "Longer delays place a greater burden on future technology to reverse injury and restore the brain to a healthy state, and make it more uncertain that the correct original state can be determined."

So has anyone ever actually been woken up? The simple answer is no, so it's a pretty big and expensive gamble.

Alcor explains: "Except for embryos, no human has ever been revived from temperatures far below freezing.

"Cryonics patients are cared for in the expectation that future technology, especially molecular nanotechnology, will be available to reverse damage associated with the cryonics process."

Topics: Science, Weird, Health

Dominic Smithers

Dominic graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in French and History. Like you, Dom has often questioned how much use a second language has been. Well, after stints working at the Manchester Evening News, the Accrington Observer and the Macclesfield Express, along with never setting foot in France, he realised the answer is surprisingly little. But I guess, c'est la vie. Contact us at [email protected]

@SmithersDom