March 26, 2019

A-3224, a confidential 85-year-old Alcor member with third-party neurocryopreservation arrangements, was declared legally dead on February 20, 2019 in San Francisco, California.

A-3224, a third-party sign-up, was pronounced clinically deceased before any membership paperwork had been signed. Relatives placed him into a freezer at a funeral home in the San Francisco bay area while we awaited funds to be transferred and paperwork to be completed. Although Alcor rarely approves third-party sign-ups, this one passed most of our criteria. Medical Response Director, Chris Divver, flew to the member’s location on February 27 to coordinate with the funeral director.

Prior to his departure, Chris spent time with Alcor Technical Coordinator, Steve Graber, to practice building Alcor’s standard whole body dry ice shipper to get more hands-on knowledge of the process. He also included a copy of the instructions to bring with me. Once in the area, using Alcor documentation Chris worked with the funeral service to build the dry ice shipper. The quality of the build was verified through extensive photographic documentation and an overnight dry ice consumption test.

On March 1, the dry ice shipper was sealed and transported to the airport. Unfortunately, the dry ice shipper was 100lbs overweight and was unable to get onto the flight. Although this was frustrating, it was far better than shipping with insufficient dry ice. On March 2, the case was resealed and taken to the airport, this time being under the weight limit. The member arrived that evening and went into cool down at 10:30 pm.