WOULD you cheat death for the price of $28,000? Well, that’s what thousands of people across the world are trying to do with cryonics.
Cryonics is the practice of deep-freezing the bodies of dead people, in hopes they can be revived in the future.
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Dennis Kowalski, a former paramedic who is now director of the Cryonics Institute, told The Sun he is one of over 2,000 people who have signed up to be frozen when they die.
The nonprofit, based out of the US, is almost entirely made up of volunteers who have all signed up themselves.
About 270 people are currently being stored in liquid nitrogen filled tubes at the Michigan facility – and an equal number of pets.
Some of the pets have even been cloned, says Kowalski, and are scampering around homes today.
Other customers have given alternative forms of DNA to be frozen, like skin cells, in hopes of being cloned themselves in the future.
Kowalski, his wife and their three sons are all signed up, each contributing $28,000 to secure their tube and fund maintenance until future medicine can bring them back to life.
In theory, that money will be transferred into a bank account in their name for when they wake up, so they can cover medical bills (should they not be free) and have some pocket money for their new life in the future.
The family took some persuading, but were fully on board once Kowalski had given his reasoning behind the process.
“We don’t propose fantastic futuristic medical science breakthroughs… we just propose to get you there,” explains Kowalski.
“We’re kind of an ambulance ride to a future hospital that may or may not exist.”
For Kowalski, who signed up himself in 1995, cryopreservation is the best way he can imagine being reunited with his family after some painful losses.
The concept of freezing a body until it can be brought back to life healthily is still just a concept.
“If it does work – oh my god… I would give everything I own for my my friends, my family, my mother, my father, people who have died in my life,” he says.
“It might be a shot in the dark… but it’s the only shot we got.”
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‘Pie-in-the-sky’
Top neuroscientists have criticised the use of cryonics.
They say it gives people false hope for a second chance at life.
But Kowalski says there’s “all sorts of evidence that this isn’t just pie-in-the-sky”.
He continues: “I mean we can freeze embryos right now. People [in embryonic form] have been frozen solid and brought back.”
From eggs and sperm to skin, scientists can freeze all kinds of mammalian biological cells for medical application.
“We just haven’t perfected the whole person,” adds Kowalski. “We haven’t been able to revive someone yet and once we do we won’t need cryonics to get you to the future – we’ll be in the future.”
For cryopreservation to work, you need a viable candidate.
A body that has been dead for a long time, or even a near-centenarian, might not be a possible, or even a good idea.
“You don’t want to come back as a 99 year old just to die again,” says Kowalski.
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A family affair
Life is about who you share it with. And the same goes for your second coming, according to Kowalski.
You’ll want people from your own timeline, with whom you can revel about the past and also grapple with the future.
Kowalski recommends all cryo-sleepers get their families on side before they die.
“The biggest people that can stand in the way of your cryopreservation is your family,” explains Kowalski.
“More often than not they want some more money out of the estate, that they think is maybe going to a foolish cause.
“So we suggest you give most of your money to your family and use life insurance as a savings vector. But the funny thing is this is affordable to just about anybody, its on par with an expensive funeral.”
This way, nobody goes into the future with bitter rivalries hanging over their heads.
“In my case, my family is interested and has signed up as well,” says Kowalski.
“My wife, my children. Two of my sons are paramedics so they understand the emergency medical procedures. So its not a problem with me.
“But I encourage people to keep this a family thing. You don’t want to break up families.”
