While I was in China in July, the Cryonics Institute cryopreserved a braindead woman who had been on lifesupport at a hospital within driving distance of our facility. The cryopreservation had been at the requested by her husband and daughter. The daughter is a woman in her early forties who is an only child and has been living with her parents all of her life.

The father (husband) had paid for the procedure and attended our September Annual General Meeting, which had led me to believe that he was very interested in cryopreservation for himself. Only a week ago he had phoned Andy asking about THE IMMORTALIST. Nonetheless, neither he nor his daughter were yet Members of CI.

In November I was telephoned at about 5pm by the daughter who informed me that her father had left for work that morning, apparently in good spirits, but had suffered a heart attack followed by a stroke and was on lifesupport in the hospital in an unconscious condition. The rest of the evening was spent attempting phone negotiations concerning cryopreservation of her father between the daughter, Robert Ettinger and me. The daughter was hoping to get money from a millionaire aunt and/or from the family's many bank accounts.

In last minute cases involving non-Members, because of emotional upset and financial problems, CI policy is to require that the patient be kept on dry ice for a few weeks as a "cooling off" period. If at the end of the period the next of kin who wanted to cryopreserve decided against the procedure, the money would be returned and the contract canceled.

Although the recent cryopreservation of the mother seemed to be a qualifying consideration, Robert and I finally told the daughter that we would require the coolingoff period because of her emotional stress and because we were concerned that she not create financial hardship for herself. But she gave me a final late phone call saying that she would spend the next day going through the family bank accounts and asking if we would accept her father if she had the money. I told her I would agree if she could convince Robert Ettinger.

The next evening the daughter telephoned me after midnight to tell me that she had the money and that the expense would not create a financial hardship for her. I told her that I would require a cashier's check and she agreed that she could provide one. She also said that the hospital had examined her father for brain death and had detected EEGs, but would do another test in the morning. I suggested that we could do cryopreservation under the best conditions if life support could be removed while we were at the bedside to have our funeral director administer heparin, use our heartlung machine and do an immediate cooldown. She insisted that she would not allow removal of lifesupport while EEGs could still be detected in her father's brain.

+Shortly after 5am the next morning I was awakened by Robert Ettinger who told me the daughter had been phoned by the hospital and told to come if she wanted to pay her last respects to her father. We awakened our funeral director and I was soon loading ice, the heartlung machine and other supplies into the funeral director's van.

When the funeral director and I arrived at the hospital emergency coronary care unit (CCU) we were told that the daughter had not come and, in fact, had not once visited the hospital since her father's arrival.

The father was scheduled for another examination later in the morning to test for brain activity. The nurse told us that even if EEGs were detected that ventricular fibrillation which would make lifesupport impossible was becoming increasingly probable. The funeral director and I sat in the waiting room periodically telephoning the daughter, but without getting an answer.

After a few hours the aunt (sister of the father) and grandmother (mother of the father) of the daughter arrived to visit the father. The aunt was a nonmillionaire nurse who immediately made clear her opposition to cryonics. Later, sitting with us in the waiting room, the 90yearold grandmother said that she understood that her son would want to be cryopreserved to be with his wife, but she could not understand why embalming should be so expensive. The grandmother began crying when she described how dependent she had been on her son to take care of her and how frightened she was.

The aunt told us that although the family owned 8 cars, a home and a cottage that the daughter had rarely ever worked.

The aunt felt that all the family money should go into trust for the benefit of the daughter. A trust was already in place. The aunt clearly regarded me to be a moneyhungry vulture. The aunt told me that a nurse had informed her that cryonics is not used when there is so much brain damage as the father had suffered. The aunt had also been phoning the daughter's home and cell phone without getting an answer. After we were informed that the father still had EEG activity the aunt and grandmother went to the daughter's house to attempt direct contact. The aunt was thinking of phoning the police if there was no answer. The aunt indicated an intention to bring a probate fight over the estate with the expressed intention of putting all the money in trust.

The funeral director and I decided to leave. When we were most of the way back to the CI facility I received a call on my cell phone from the daughter. She told me that she was on her way to the bank to get the money. I told her that we would not do anything until I saw a cashier's check and until she had signed the Cryonic Suspension Agreement and Membership on behalf of her father. I suggested that we meet her at the bank or the hospital, but she opposed both suggestions. She said that she was in a rush to get to the bank before it closed and said that she would phone me again in a halfhour.

I told the funeral director to drive back, but instead of going to the hospital, we went to a market where we wandered. We did not want to confront the daughter or aunt at the hospital. After an hour the daughter had still not phoned me back, so we called the aunt on a cell phone. The aunt was back at the hospital, where the father's heart had stopped. The daughter could still not be contacted. The funeral director and I waited at least another hour, punctuated by failed attempts to phone the daughter. We decided to return to the CI facility, but while on the highway I got a call on my cell phone from an acquaintance of the daughter who said the daughter was at the hospital and wanted to know why cryonics support was not being given to the father.

We returned to the hospital and found the daughter in the CCU room with her dead father. She asked us to inject heparin, begin cooldown and give cardiopulmonary support. I felt frustrated and helpless seeing the father lying on the hospital bed, but I had to tell the daughter that we could do nothing until we had the money and the paperwork was signed. She said the money was at her home. Arrangements were made to send the father to the refrigeration unit awaiting pickup by our funeral director when and if we returned from the daughter's house.

The daughter wanted to spend time alone with her father before we left. We sat in the waiting room for halfanhour, after which time I returned to the CCU room and suggested to the daughter that it was time to go. I was trying to make allowances for her behavior based on the trauma to be expected of a woman in her 40s who had recently lost both parents who had been the center of her whole life but I think we both realized that ischemic damage should not be allowed to continue.

We followed the vehicles of the acquaintance and daughter to the daughter's house the acquaintance leading the way. The daughter spent about ten or fifteen minutes in the house while the rest of us waited outside. The acquaintance informed us that she had been a nurse for the daughter's mother and that as far as she knew the daughter had no friends.

The daughter came out of the house with a cashier's check for less than half the money. I said that the amount of the check was insufficient. She went back into the house for about fifteen minutes until emerging with a handwritten check which she said her father had signed in case he needed cryopreservation. I was not about to accept a handwritten check, even if her father had actually written it. I reminded the daughter of the funeral director who might store her father temporarily on dry ice and we left. Later that evening the second funeral director phoned me to say that negotiations for dry ice storage had not been successful.

I thought the matter was ended, but in the middle of the following week I was contacted by our funeral director who informed me that the daughter had called him to say that she had the money and was ready to proceed. Her father was still in refrigeration at the hospital. I spoke to the daughter on the telephone, telling her we would not take the case. She was heart-wrenchingly insistent that we take her father.

This was a very difficult decision, though consistent with CI's policies with non-Members in lastminute situations. I was advised that the ischemic damage was too great by that time, but I knew that I myself would want to be cryopreserved under those circumstances.

The hospital was willing to keep the father for one week at most, although I don't know how easy it would be for them to act on their deadline when the daughter was refusing to remove her father. I had a final conversation with the daughter in which she seemed to be accepting the futility of the situation, but I later heard that she was unsuccessfully phoning funeral directors asking them to keep her father on dry ice.

This case illustrates again the need to make arrangements in advance and the great difficulties that can arise without having done so. Members should ensure that close relatives who could have legal leverage in thwarting cryonics arrangements have agreed to the procedure and if they have not agreed that precautions be taken to prevent interference.