X-Message-Number: 18742 From: Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 02:32:40 EST Subject: Cooling and Coroners In a message dated 2/28/02 2:01:34 AM Pacific Standard Time, Lionel Vogt writes: > Hopefully there wont be any objection to placing a self contained head > cooling device over the paitients head > untill a proper suspension can be done. You cannot touch a patient (literally) let alone put a cooling helmet on him if he is a Coroner's or ME's case until you obtain permission. Permission is virtually never granted. In my many years of involvement in cryonics and medicine I have had only one exception to this; a gentleman in a small town with a known history of heart disease who was expected to die at any time and who was a known cryonicist. Over the Coroner's deputies objections his teenage son packed his father's head in ice. They chose not to intervene and later allowed the local cryonics people to pack the patient's entire body in ice once the physician had been contacted and agreed to sign the death certificate. In most medicolegal situations you literally cannot touch the patient (not so much as a finger tap) without an ME's release number. A number of patients have spent hours unrefrigerated in morgues or riding around in steaming hot vans all day long because the case was medicolegal and the ME could not deviate from the strict protocols that would allow his findings to hold up in court. Keep in mind that the ME/Coroner and their deputies are peace officers and frequently carry guns. They have all the powers that regular police officers do. They are often police officer wannabes and are frequently very rigid and authoritarian. Another reason for this stance is that they answer essentially to no one. The rights of the dead are virtually nonexistent. I have dealt with many, many Coroners and MEs and they come in all stripes. Most are inflexible because their job calls for it. You can't play fast and lose with police procedure: reproducibility is the key to credibility (witness the OJ trial fiasco with Dennis Fung and the myriad other screw ups in handling and processing evidence). Some are more than inflexible; they are malicious idiots. Having been handcuffed and carted off to jail by one such fool I advise caution and discretion in dealing with them. Pulling a maneuver like chilling a patient's head with a helmet and attached machinery without prior and explicit authorization is one of the best ways I know of to buy an E ticket to a full blown autopsy and a *long* wait before you get the finely sliced brain in the bag with the rest of viscera given to you. Not to mention finding yourself in the Graybar Motel. Mike Darwin Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18742