X-Message-Number: 5018
Date: 20 Oct 1995 06:19: U
From: "Norton, Brook" <>
Subject: How avoid damage at death?

On Cryonet I've read a lot about brain tissue damage that happens within a few
hours of deanimation.  And Darwin has made some comments about brain tissue
damage that occurs in the hours before death.  In the hours where breathing and
circulation are so weak that tissue begins deteriorating prior to the stopping
of the heart beat.  It seems such a shame to have to take this insult before
being cooled down.  So I was wondering how one would minimize it.  You'd like
to let the suspension team cool you down while you were still alive, but of
course thats still illegal.  I've heard terminal patients can refuse food and
water to accelerate death.  Does the accelerated death decrease brain damage
prior to death by shutting the body down in a few days instead of nature's
course of a few weeks or months (for terminal patients)?  Or does death by
dehydration also have the same couple of hours of very low metabolism prior to
death, and thereby deliver the same insult as a "natural death"?  Is there a
better way to hasten death whereby the brain tissue experiences less
unoxygenated time?  A way that (like dehydration) is not considered suicide,
and therefore not subject to autopsy?

Brook Norton
Aerodynamics Engineer
McDonnell Douglas


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