Cryonics Institute Case Report for Patient Number 168

CI patient #168 was a 15 year old male from China.  The patient was not a CI member at the time of his death.

The patient died at home on April 5, 2018. The death was accidental and unexpected, so the family did not have time to prepare in advance. The patient was taken to a local funeral home where he was cooled down and frozen. The patient’s next of kin contacted CI about four days after the death had occurred and instructions were given for how to make him a patient at CI. Because contacts are very limited in China and no other organization could help get the transportation done, the father worked very hard to find a means of transporting his son to us. The patient was straight frozen because a perfusion would not be possible given the circumstances.

The patient arrived at the CI facility, in dry ice, on April 16, 2018, approximately eleven days after death. The patient was then placed into the computer controlled cooling chamber to cool to liquid nitrogen temperature.  The human cooling program from dry ice was selected and the time needed to cool the patient to liquid nitrogen temperature was 24 hours.  The patient was then placed in a cryostat for long-term cryonic storage.

Cryonics Institute Case Report for Patient Number 167

CI patient #167 was a 65 year old male from California.  The patient was a CI member at the time of his death.

The patient died unexpectedly at home. It was estimated that he died around 10 pm on Tuesday, March 27th, but he was found and pronounced around 10 am the next day, the 28th. He was brought to the medical examiner’s office and the coroner called us because the patient was wearing an emergency bracelet. The patient’s Objection to Autopsy form and signed next of kin documents were faxed to the medical examiner’s office to get the coroner to release the patient. They agreed to release the patient and to keep him in the refrigeration unit until the funeral home staff came to bring him to their facility. Once the funeral home had the patient in their care, the staff informed us that the soonest they could get the patient to us would be Monday, due to private circumstances. Because of this and the hours of warm ischemia between the patient’s death and discovery, it was decided that the patient would be straight frozen and the funeral home was provided with the dry ice guidelines. The necessary paperwork was obtained and the flight was made for the patient to arrive on Monday night, but the funeral home called to inform CI staff that the patient’s flight had to be changed and he would be on the red eye flight to arrive early on Tuesday morning. 

The patient arrived at the CI facility at 8:45 am on the 3rd of April, approximately six and a half days after death. 

The patient was then transferred to the computer controlled cooling chamber to cool to liquid nitrogen temperature.  The patient was then placed in a cryostat for long-term cryonic storage. 

Comments: The bracelet the patient was wearing proved to be helpful in notifying CI of an emergency. We were called before the next of kin because of it. When CI then tried to contact the funeral home that the patient had chosen ahead of time, it was discovered that the funeral home went out of business and we were referred to a different funeral home. This funeral home was not familiar with the patient or cryonics procedures. This is a good example of why it is important to keep in contact with the local funeral home, to make sure they are still in business and are still willing and able to help in an emergency.  See CI resources for more information on preplanning and standby.

Cryonics Institute Case Report for Patient Number 166

CI patient #166 was a 92 year old female from Toronto.  The patient was a CI member at the time of her death.

The patient died in the hospital and was pronounced at 8:58 pm on March 26, 2018. After pronouncement took place, bags of ice were applied to the patient’s head and neck by the contracted local standby personnel. The hospital would not allow any further standby procedures to be performed at the hospital. The family made arrangements ahead of time with a local funeral home, which came to take the patient to their funeral home for further cool down with ice. The standby personnel were able to administer Heparin, Sodium Citrate, and Maalox upon the patient’s arrival at the funeral home. The patient remained in ice and refrigeration while the necessary paperwork for the transportation was obtained. 

The patient arrived at the CI facility at 4:20 pm on March 28th, approximately 43 hours after death.  She was in a Ziegler case with a generous amount of ice. The nasal temperature upon her arrival was 3.3c. 

Hillary Martenson performed the perfusion. During the perfusion there were 3 liters of 10% Eg solution and 3 liters of 30% Eg solution used, and 16 liters of 70% VM1 solutions used.  The final refractive index of the effluents exiting the right jugular vein was 1.4138.  The final refractive index of the effluents exiting the left jugular vein was 1.4060. The average perfusion pressure was held at 105mm and metal cannulas were used. Flow rate started at 1.35 liters per minute and was reduced to 0.59 liters per minute by the end of the perfusion. The nasal temperature was 1.7c at the end of the perfusion.