X-Message-Number: 7729 Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 10:26:41 -0700 (MST) From: Fred Chamberlain <> Subject: Suspension of Long Standing Member >From Linda Chamberlain CryoTransport Manager Alcor Life Extension Foundation Joe Cannon, long time cryonics activist and Alcor member since 1984, was suspended on Friday, February 21, 1997. The circumstances that surrounded Joe's final days and his arrest were tragic. His situation was not unique. As cryonicists, we need to all be aware of what happened, and that something of this kind could happen to any one of us. We urgently need to work toward finding ways to safeguard ourselves from this sort of outcome in the future. After Joe's wife, Terry Cannon, was suspended on February 12, 1985, Joe found loneliness to be a heavy burden. In the last couple of years that burden grew even more difficult. Joe's health was failing on several fronts. Nearly two years ago, his doctor stated in writing that "death was imminent" (clearly, the doctor was jumping the gun... even recently, Joe was doing maintenance on his house and going dancing on the weekends.) At the time Joe's doctor stated that his death was "imminent", Alcor Staff and Directors tried to persuade Joe to move to Arizona. That way, he could be closer to other cryonicists and the Alcor facility when he actually needed to be suspended. Joe elected not to relocate, though. He loved Avon Park, Florida, and was close to his neighbors, from a community point of view. In his mind, the emotional cost of relocating would have been too great. After all, he was still able to maintain his house and go dancing on weekends. But the sense of community Joe had in Avon Park was by no means enough to offset the pain of Terry's loss. Over the last year, Joe's depression continued to deepen. Recently, he began telling neighbors and friends that he was not sure he even wanted to be suspended anymore. He told his neighbors and some of us that he felt his beloved Terry would be better off in the future without him; that Terry would find another who would be better for her. "She was always the strong one," he told me recently. "She'll do just fine without me!" Joe's recent thoughts on cryonics were, by no means, totally altered. In a letter to me only a few weeks ago, Joe suggested that if his health were to suddenly decline alarmingly, one of us might come to Florida and fly him back to Scottsdale. And he had local arrangements and backups which were firmly in place. Being a long time cryonics activist, Joe had contacted a local funeral director years ago, and had equipped himself with apparatus of various sorts, including a heart lung resuscitator. He had extensively investigated "death alert devices" including apnea monitors some years ago. And he had made arrangements to assure that he would be suspended no matter what. The local funeral director was committed to start the procedure without outside help, if necessary, and transportation arrangements were in place. Due to Joe's health risks, Alcor had been in close contact with the funeral director over the last two years, and with Joe himself. But this was not enough. The events which follow show that being alone and at distance from one's cryonic organization are not a workable combination for insuring a good cryonics suspension. After a fall from a ladder while working on his house, which may have broken a rib, Joe began talking about suicide. His actions so alarmed his neighbors that one of them "called 911". By the time we knew about this, Joe had been taken to a hospital nearly a hundred miles away for psychiatric evaluation. This placed Joe in a "totally isolated" situation. The hospital refused to even admit that he was there. A non-cryonicist neighbor who served as Joe's medical surrogate, who was well aware of his cryonics arrangements, was the only one who had contact with him, via a call from Joe which even she could not return. The neighbor said that Joe "sounded much better... the same old Joe," but still, we could not get through to Joe ourselves. Alcor's legal counsel advised that if we made an issue of Joe's cryonics arrangements with the hospital, as to Alcor's anatomical donor recipient status, this could well make his situation even more difficult. For days, we reviewed every option available. Our best hope was that after a brief period of observation and evaluation, Joe would be released and we would be able to talk with him directly. But that was not to be. Early on Thursday morning (2/20/97), Alcor received a call from Joe's funeral director, notifying us that he had committed suicide. The funeral director told us that since Joe had not been found until morning, after an undetermined number of hours of ischemia, his medical surrogate assumed the situation was hopeless as far as Joe's cryonics arrangements, and had given orders for cremation. Our long term relationship with the funeral director resulted in his calling us as soon as he received word of Joe's death, luckily before an autopsy or cremation had been performed. Quick and decisive work on the part of several experienced Alcor Directors got us in contact with the Medical Examiner and the appropriate official in the Florida State Attorney's office. Although an autopsy could not be waived, these officials did agree to honor the Anatomical Donation to Alcor and to restrict the autopsy to the trunk, leaving the major vessels in the neck intact, so that perfusion of the brain could be attempted. A washout was attempted as well as glycerolization, but the circumstances did not allow Joe a good perfusion. We can only be grateful that Joe did not suffer either a full brain autopsy, or even cremation. More details and our best thoughts about how to prevent this problem will be discussed in a future issue of Cryonics. Linda Chamberlain CryoTransport Manager 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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7729