X-Message-Number: 24282 From: Subject: CI's 65th Patient Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 08:55:16 US/Eastern CI's 65th patient was a "last-minute" case which demonstrated many of the things that can go wrong for people who sign-up at the last minute. We were initially contacted about 8pm Eastern Standard Time and the patient deanimated at about 4am EST the next morning. The patient was a cancer victim living in the Los Angeles area. Both her son and brother were intent on having her cryopreserved, but did not have much familiarity with cryonics. They chose a funeral home and hospital well before the time they contacted us. They were unaware that we use cryoprotectants, but agreed to a credit card charge for us to express-courier our perfusate to their funeral home. We will not accept a full cryopreservation fee on a credit card and it takes the better part of a day to wire funds or express-courier a cashier's check. Too late we learned that the funeral home refused to do the perfusion, refused to allow anyone else to do a perfusion on their premises and objected to having two boxes of perfusate couriered to their address. Our funeral directors' network cannot be utilized unless there is a commitment that a paid-up Member is at immediate risk. Without cash-in-hand we cannot be certain that a last-minute case will not result in a last-minute change-of-mind, so we had to find another funeral director ourside of our usual network. I contacted my friend Russell Cheney, who was in Florida. Russell has been a local response coordinator for Alcor in the Los Angeles area. In addition to his recommendation of a funeral director Russell gave me a list of phone numbers for Alcor volunteers in the LA area. I was reluctant to contact these people, thinking that there might be "political" ramifications to circumventing official Alcor approval. Later I decided I would try to contact them the next day -- which proved to be too late. I think a number of them would have agreed to stand-by and apply ice and CPR upon pronouncement of death. The Los Angeles funeral director was contacted and agreed to perfuse, but later changed his mind. We ended-up perfusing in San Diego with a funeral director who had done a previous case. When the San Diego funeral home opened two boxes from the courier company to begin the perfusion they discovered computer parts. The parts had not been expected, although they did belong to the funeral home (were correctly addressed) and were delivered by the same courier company. The courier company found the boxes of perfusate in a Los Angeles warehouse and sent them to San DIego. In their defense they said that good service cannot be expected when re-directing shipment twice en route. As the general public learns more about cryonics I hope they also get the message that cryonics arrangements are not to be made while on a deathbed. Unfortunately, there are also many people who know a great deal about cryonics who think that last-minute arrangements are preferable for economic or other reasons. I think such people are making a big mistake. More details on the 65th patient can be found in the upcoming issue of THE IMMORTALIST. For subscription information see http://www.cryonics.org/info.html -- Ben Best Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24282