X-Message-Number: 11539
From: 
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 12:33:55 EDT
Subject: another object lesson

The old Pennsylvania Dutch saying has it, "Oldt too soon, schmardt too late."

In our context, the dreary refrain goes on--dead too soon, smart too late. 
Over and over. Time after time, not quite as regular as clockwork, but nearly 
so--and that's just the ones we know about; there are undoubtedly many others 
of whom we never hear.

In the most recent case, a gentleman in Australia,  about 18 months ago, had 
requested information from the Cryonics Institute, and had gradually begun to 
get organized. In fact he had actually had a will drawn which included a 
statement of his plan for cryostasis. But he had not actually joined CI when 
he up and died.

Many hours after his death, his solicitor (lawyer) called both Theo Tatton 
(Cryonics Association of Australia) and me to inform us and ask what could be 
done. The dead man's executors were his children, and not immediately 
available. I told the solicitor that of course the circumstances made any 
action much less hopeful than in ideal circumstances, and that conventional 
opinion (as from a random sampling of physicians or cryobiologists) would put 
the chance as near zero even in ideal circumstances. 

My personal opinion, and that of a considerable number of well qualified 
people (people much better qualified than the average physician or 
cryobiologist), is much more optimistic, for reasons spelled out in detail on 
our web site. But the important thing, from the standpoint of a lawyer or 
executor or family, should be the intent and wishes of  the prospective 
patient himself. Most of our members prefer the default option, viz., "If you 
can find me, freeze me." They want to be given the benefit of the doubt, and 
not allow others, especially family of doubtful sympathy or competence, to 
have discretion. Therefore, I pointed out, unless the individual had 
specified otherwise, it should be assumed that he wanted to be frozen under 
any circumstances.

In practice, in this case, this meant the solicitor should arrange for a 
local funeral director to stabilize the person by packing in dry ice. This 
would be an extremely crude freezing, but after the lapse of time, and 
anticipated further lapse of time before the children could be contacted and 
could make any decision, and before any more complicated procedure could be 
arranged, the time factor was probably more important than details of 
treatment. 

The solicitor had access to our web site, and also requested and was sent by 
fax a contract of the kind used in these cases--a contract to be executed by 
the next of kin. We heard nothing further, so of course it went the usual 
way; the family preferred to do nothing. Whether the will gave the executors 
such discretion I don't know, but in any case we obviously could do nothing 
further.

Nothing except remind others, yet again, that if you delay too long, there 
may be no second chances. We don't try to hustle anybody, and always 
recommend "due diligence" investigation of cryonics itself and of the various 
organizations. But "due diligence" is not the same as procrastination, and 
the latter can be fatal.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org  

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11539