X-Message-Number: 7421
Date:  Sat, 04 Jan 97 17:07:07 
From: Steve Bridge <>
Subject: Press Release

To CryoNet
>From Steve Bridge, Alcor
January 4, 1997

This press release has gone out to most major newspapers and TV networks, 
plus some weekly magazines nationwide (U.S. only).  Feel free to post 
this other places electronically or send to your local paper.


January 2, 1997

*** PRESS RELEASE from ALCOR LIFE EXTENSION FOUNDATION ***

For release on January 12, 1997 or sooner.

     Sunday, January 12, 1997 is a milestone in the history of the 
experimental technology of *cryonics*.  Dr. James Bedford, the first 
human frozen to await treatment by future medicine, has been in his 
preserved state for 30 years.

     Although cryonics procedures currently may be practiced only on 
individuals who are labeled as legally "dead," adherents consider 
cryonic suspension to be a potential life-saving procedure.  They 
expect that advanced medical technologies of the next century may be 
able to repair the ravages of disease, injury, freezing, and aging 
and return the patient to active, healthy life.  They also 
anticipate that physicians will continue to redefine when truly 
irreversible "death" occurs, so that today's frozen patients may 
someday be considered alive and revivable.

     Dr. Bedford was a psychology professor at Glendale College in 
California.  In 1966 he discovered he had terminal renal cancer.  He 
had read *The Prospect of Immortality* by physics professor Robert 
C.W. Ettinger, the book which began the cryonics movement in 1964.  
With the help of his wife and son, Bedford arranged for a fledgling 
organization, Cryonics Society of California (now defunct), to place 
him into cryonic suspension.  When his heart stopped on January 12 
at the age of 73, the cryonics volunteers injected protective fluids 
and slowly froze him to the temperature of liquid nitrogen (-320 
degrees F, -196 degrees C).

     In his long and adventurous life, Bedford had traveled the 
world, including an African safari and a trip up the Amazon River.  
His journeys since his cryonic suspension have been no less 
interesting.

     The suspension was crude, compared to today's procedures, and 
reliable companies for the protection of cryonics patients did not 
yet exist.  Bedford's relatives first moved him to Phoenix, Arizona 
to be cared for at a company which manufactured the first cryonics 
storage units.  Over the following decade, Bedford's dedicated 
family would move him to three different locations in California, 
including secret storage in a mini-warehouse.

    In 1982, representatives of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation 
contacted the family and offered to take permanent custody of Dr. 
Bedford's frozen body.  From 1982 until 1994, Dr. Bedford was stored 
at Alcor's California facilities in Fullerton and Riverside.

    In March, 1994, Alcor moved Dr. Bedford, along with Alcor's 
other suspension patients, to its current headquarters in 
Scottsdale, Arizona.

    Today, there are approximately 70 total cryonics patients 
preserved in liquid nitrogen at -3200 F at four different cryonics 
companies (33 of that number are at Alcor).  Several hundred other 
adventurous people have made the advance legal and financial 
arrangements to receive low temperature preservation when today's 
doctors are no longer able to save their lives.

    For a media information package about cryonics or to arrange 
interviews, please contact Steve Bridge or Brian Shock at Alcor Life 
Extension Foundation.  Telephone 602-922-9013, Fax 602-922-9027 or 
e-mail  or   Detailed information may 
also be located on Alcor's Web site at www.alcor.org.



Stephen Bridge, President ()
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
Non-profit cryonic suspension services since 1972.
7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale AZ 85260-6916
Phone (602) 922-9013  (800) 367-2228   FAX (602) 922-9027
 for general requests
http://www.alcor.org


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