X-Message-Number: 17368 From: Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 09:35:29 EDT Subject: Saving James Swayze SAVING JAMES SWAYZE Most Cryonet readers are probably familiar with the James Swayze situation. James is almost completely paralyzed, and under federally subsidized care. That care has a price. All his earnings have been taken away, and whatever he might somehow manage to earn will also be taken away. His health is precarious, but his determination and his intelligence are not. He learned about cryonics, and the possibility that through cryonics he might yet overcome his unfortunate situation. He wants to try. The only problem is that he can't afford it. CI, and I personally, would very much like to see Mr. Swayze get his chance. The difficulty is that no cryonics organization can simply provide suspensions free of charge. Suspensions are expensive, and that expense is ongoing, as daily care and maintenance and supplies are needed to safeguard patients. Cryonics organizations cannot get into the habit of taking financial losses, even for charitable purposes. We saw that happen many years ago with the Chatsworth situation. There, charity patients were accepted. But with no money to fund their care, or pay company bills, the company failed, and those patients and all the patients were lost. CI has determined that that will never happen to our patients, and so it is CI policy that funding, in every case, has to be adequate and certain. Nonetheless, I and a number of others at CI have been trying to come up with some way to give James his chance. My own ideas have gone through several phases. At one point I thought CI might reasonably give James a price break, or even fund his suspension in exchange for his active help in public relations. But as I learned more about his situation, it became clear that this might not be fair either to CI or to him. From our point of view, the potential value of his PR help is really uncertain -- it could be considerable, or it could be negligible, and there is a legal question as to whether he can earn anything at all without government regulations interfering. From his point of view, the demands on his time might be counter-productive. His health varies from bad to very bad, and forcing someone in poor health to work for what might be a very long time is neither wise nor fair. He ought to use his time as he sees fit, perhaps to work on his inventions, perhaps just to extract a bit of enjoyment from life. Rudi Hoffman did a lot of work on life insurance possibilities, providing some interesting potential for future problem cases, but leaving gaps in James' case, about which I won't go into in detail here. So I think now that it just comes down to individuals coming together voluntarily to donate the cost of a CI suspension for him. To make that possible, I've made a personal decision. Just under $10,000 has been pledged so far. The total required -- suspension fee, membership fee, and local and transportation costs -- we figure $33,000. That leaves us $23,000 short, assuming all the previous pledgers make good. I now make the following commitment. If we can get another $10,000 in donations, paid to CI along with payments for the previous pledges (total $20,000), then I will personally make up the difference (i.e., fund up to $13,000 additional). I don't want to be misunderstood. I hope we can get a total donation sum of $33,000. But if we achieve at least $20,000, and we seem to be nearly halfway there already, then I will make up the difference. Now, a few particulars. Every plan can be argued and nitpicked back and forth, but I want to avoid argument and get cracking, so the following is not just an idea or a suggestion but the plan: 1. We want donations, not pledges -- cash, not promises. Please send your donations as soon as possible, payable to Cryonics Institute. (On the memo line of the check, usually at the lower left -- not on the payee line -- you may write "James Swayze Fund.") Mail it to Cryonics Institute, 24355 Sorrentino Court, Clinton Township, Michigan 48035. You will of course receive an acknowledgement. Donors' names and amounts will be kept confidential if requested -- though we'd prefer to thank you publicly and make your generosity public at some point. Setting an example for others could inspire others to help. 2. We do not plan to announce the status of the fund until the goal of $20,000 is conclusively passed. Otherwise, obviously, some potential donors might hold off, hoping their own contributions will not be needed. Please, don't hold off for any reason -- James' health is much more problematical than that of most people, and it would be ghastly if he were to miss his chance by a hair. 3. Donations are not refundable, except as follows. If donations should happen to exceed $33,000, the overage will be refunded pro rata (the same percentage of each donation will go back to each donor). If James should die before the necessary amount is reached and he is not suspended by CI, all donations will be refunded. I hope that all $33,000 can be raised. But at the moment raising even $10,000 (beyond the current pledges) could secure a cryonic suspension, and the possiblity of a new life, for James Swayze. $10,000 dollars seems like a lot of money, I know. But there are said to be approaching a thousand people in the world who are signed-up members of cryonics organizations. Some are comfortably off, some of them are quite wealthy, and all of them are able to meet the costs of membership and insurance. If each one sends in what he can afford without hardship, James Swayze would be able to realize the hope all of us have -- a chance of a new and healthy life in an amazing future. We've all seen a lot of disagreement among cryonicists on this list. Let's put it behind us, and pull together this once, to help a friend--a man of extraordinary spirit, who needs to have his extraordinarily bad luck mitigated. Robert Ettinger Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17368