Southern Cryonics stores seven bodies in liquid nitrogen; a Guardian reporter visited its Holbrook facility
Southern Cryonics stores seven bodies in liquid nitrogen; a Guardian reporter visited its Holbrook facility
On September 10, The Guardian published a report from the Southern Cryonics storage facility in Holbrook, New South Wales. The reporter saw seven bodies in two vessels containing liquid nitrogen and witnessed a routine refill.
A Dewar is an insulated vessel for liquid nitrogen. At Holbrook, bodies are stored head down in Dewars at −196 °C. Liquid nitrogen evaporates, and a sealed vessel would develop dangerous pressure, so the supplier regularly refills the tanks. At the request of its first clients, Southern Cryonics shortened the interval between deliveries from a month to two weeks.
Preparations for storage begin when a patient is terminally ill. According to CryoPath’s description of its process, the patient’s representative informs the company of the patient’s condition and location; CryoPath checks the funding, assembles a standby team and engages a funeral home. After legal death, a perfusionist, a specialist who administers fluids through the circulatory system, cools the body and administers a cryoprotectant, a solution intended to prevent ice crystals from forming in tissues. The body is then transported to Holbrook on dry ice. For straight freezing, the funeral home handles stabilization.
Cryobiologist Saffron Bryant of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology explains that vitrification is already used to preserve cells, embryos and blood products. For organs and whole bodies, delivering cryoprotectant evenly throughout all tissues remains an unresolved problem.
The published Southern Cryonics contract lists the conditions on which continued storage depends. The client arranges and pays for standby services, stabilization and transport. Insufficient storage funds, unpaid fees upon delivery, transport delays, loss of authorization, changes in the law or the operator’s insolvency give the company the right to decline or discontinue cryogenic storage. The contract then provides for burial, cremation or transfer of the body to the person legally authorized to take charge of it.