by Tanya Jones

from Alcor News #49, March 10, 2006

Our second case in February 2006 was the sudden demise of a member in Ohio, A-1237. The 54-year-old gentleman with no known medical conditions died in the early morning hours of the 28th. His wife contacted Alcor after calling 911. With the cause of death uncertain, the police detectives contacted the Coroner’s Office. We discussed the possibility of a minimally invasive autopsy to establish the cause of death (information which is also of use to us). Unfortunately, county policy dictated that if an autopsy were to be performed, it would be comprehensive, compromising the cryopreservation. Furthermore, the autopsy would not even be scheduled until the next morning.

Because of the member’s long-time and strong desire for cryopreservation, his wife waived the autopsy in order to respect his wishes. The patient was released to a cooperating funeral home that same afternoon and transported to Arizona via commercial carrier. He is cooling now and is Alcor’s 74th patient.

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from Alcor News #50, April 29, 2006

Some further details on last month’s case: One of our members (A-1237) suffered a sudden cardiac arrest sometime during the night of Feb. 27- 28, 2006, while at his home in Ohio. He lay undiscovered until his wife checked on him at 9:30 local time on the morning of the 28th. Paramedics were called, and the Coroners office initiated an investigation. After some discussion the wife wanted to waive the autopsy. (The Coroner had a policy that any autopsy would be fully invasive.) Luckily this option was allowed and the autopsy was avoided. Toxicology samples were taken to assist in the determination of causes of death.

The patient arrived at Alcor at about 11:30 a.m. Mar. 1. With a delay of between 34 and 42 hours since arrest, there was no cryoprotection. Instead we decided to take a few moments to establish acoustic monitoring of the brain, a slight change from our previous protocol in this sort of case; cryogenic cooling then commenced. This is Alcor’s 74th patient.