X-Message-Number: 24045
From: "Steve Harris" <>
References: <>

Subject: Public Statement on Roy Walford and Cryonics, by Lisa Walford 
()
Date: Tue, 4 May 2004 18:20:17 -0700

Public Statement for the Life Extension Community by Lisa
Walford (), Regarding the Death of her
Father, Roy Walford:

Roy was interested in being cryopreserved under the best of
conditions, with immediate circulatory bypass at the
hospital or hospice. We were in the process of signing up
and negotiating terms to meet his pre-requisites.
Specifically, he did not think cryonics with brain ischemia
longer than a couple of hours was worth the effort.

He suffered a sudden and unexpected accidental aspiration,
which resulted in hypotension and a cerebral anoxic event
which put him in a vegetative coma, from which a very
careful neurological exam indicated he would not recover.
Over two days, damage to most of his cerebral cortex proved
extensive on MRI with diffusion-weighted imaging. His EEG
showed burst-suppression activity only, also indicating
severe cortical damage. Given that he had expressed
misgivings at ischemia times in hours, it was decided that
an ischemia time of days certainly had resulted in brain
damage which would have been completely unacceptable to Roy.
Therefore, his agent for medical power of attorney, me,
decided that when life support was withdrawn, Roy would not
be an appropriate candidate for a "last minute" third-party
signup for cryopreservation.

It was also the Power of Attorney who choose to cremate,
rather than donate the body to science.  Roy had not
specified a preference either way.

End of Statement



Posted by Steven B. Harris

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