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