"Roy was interested in being cryopreserved under the best of conditions, with immediate circulatory bypass at the hospital or hospice. We were in the process of signing up and negotiating terms to meet his pre-requisites. Specifically, he did not think cryonics with brain ischemia longer than a couple of hours was worth the effort."
"He suffered a sudden and unexpected accidental aspiration, which resulted in hypotension and a cerebral anoxic event which put him in a vegetative coma, from which a very careful neurological exam indicated he would not recover. Over two days, damage to most of his cerebral cortex proved extensive on MRI with diffusion-weighted imaging. His EEG showed burst-suppression activity only, also indicating severe cortical damage. Given that he had expressed misgivings at ischemia-times in hours, it was decided that an ischemia-time of days certainly had resulted in brain damage which would have been completely unacceptable to Roy. Therefore, his agent for Medical Power of Attorney, I, myself, decided that when life support was withdrawn, my Father would not be an appropriate candidate for a "last-minute" third-party sign-up for cryopreservation."
"It was also the Power of Attorney who choose to cremate, rather than donate the body to science. Roy had not specified a preference either way."
-- Ms. Lisa Walford
[ Editor's Note: If you have any further questions, Lisa may be reached by E-mail at
lisa@walford.com .]