Alcor member A-2628 (he wishes his identity to be kept private) was pronounced legally deceased on July 23, 2012. A whole body member, A-2628 became Alcor’s 112th patient.
On Friday, July 20th, Alcor was notified through the TeleMed alert system that a 90 year old individual wishing to be cryopreserved was in serious condition in a Las Vegas hospital. This individual had filled out an application for membership in 2009 (and was provisionally assigned the number A-2628) but never followed through with the necessary paperwork and funding. Since he became unable to make cryonics arrangements, this case had to be treated as a third-party arrangement.
Because of the greater risk involved, Alcor requires additional conditions to be met before accepting such a case. These conditions are rarely met. These include some past interest in cryonics on the part of the person for whom cryopreservation is sought; lack of opposition by close relatives; finances in place without undue hardship; no long ischemic time; and informed consent of persons making the arrangement. This case was one of the rare ones to proceed, in large part due to the determined efforts of A-2628’s granddaughter supported by the family accountant.
Over the weekend of July 21-22 Aaron and Max pushed hard to get more information on his medical condition, to get all necessary Third-Party sign-up documents signed, and to secure payment – all conditions necessary before we could go into action. The grandfather’s health declined rapidly, while we ran into administrative delays common at the weekend. Although his clinical death occurred on July 23rd, a day prior to completing the sign-up process, arrangements were made to have his body heparinized and cooled at a local mortuary until his membership status could be approved.
Once the necessary arrangements had been completed, Aaron flew to Las Vegas and arrived approximately 22 hours after clinical death to complete the medication administration, create a more aggressive cooling environment and package the body for flight. An air ambulance was paid for by the family to minimize the travel time and the patient arrived at Alcor for washout and cryoprotection within the next six hours. Several Alcor staff stayed through the night of July 24/25 until A-2628 had been perfused as well as possible given his condition, and dropped below the freezing point.
