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

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