He was the world’s first “frozen man”.
According to his pre-life wish, after his death, his body would be freezed for 50 years to be defrosted, so that he would die and resurrect.
However, when the staff was unfreezing for him, he was stopped by a scene in front of him!
Was he really resurrected?
Contact with freezing technology.
The Frozen Man's name is James Bedford, and he's no ordinary old man.
Earlier he was a professor of university psychology, then he made a lot of money from investing in real estate and technology companies, and at the age of 60, he was able to lie down and rent his day.
If he did not get sick, he would probably be like other American old men, safely and steadfastly through his life, not thinking about the fate but not let him go easily.
At the age of 72, he was diagnosed with late renal cancer during a medical examination.
The doctors told him frankly that according to the current medical level, he could only live a maximum of six months.
When he heard this, Bedford was completely panicked, he was frightened and could not sleep, could not eat, and often had nightmares, and everyone was soon crazy.
In order to relax, he often went to the bookstore. Unexpectedly, it was this habit that actually brought him a glimmer of "vitality".
One day, he came across a book called The Hope of Eternal Life.
In particular, it is written in the book that future technology can unfreeze people frozen, and can cure diseases that cannot be cured now, which is equivalent to "suspending life and the future."
Bedford was so convinced that he was about to ask a doctor about the theory when an electrician named Robert Nelson came to his door.
This Nelson is a loyal fan of ettinger. After reading The Expectation of Eternal Life, his blood is boiling, and he can't wait to find someone to practice it immediately.
He learned that Bedford was going to experiment, so he initially contacted Bedford, shaking his chest and assuring: "I can pull Etinger in, let's do it together!"
It is estimated that Bedford was also in a hurry to go to the doctor, so he agreed without much thought, and even took out $4,200 as the start-up capital of the project.
In this way, a strange "iron triangle" was established: one was a rich man who wanted to be resurrected, the other was an overly enthusiastic electrician, and the other was a theoretical physics teacher who wrote books.
They rented an abandoned meat processing plant in the suburbs of Los Angeles as a “human body freezing experimental base.”
On January 12, 1967, Bedford died at his home.
According to the agreement, Nelson rushed to his house as quickly as possible with two temporary doctors and sent his body to the laboratory.
Due to the rush of preparation, they didn't even have special freezing equipment, only to temporarily create a "ice coffin", in fact, a large stainless steel container filled with dry ice.
The team members started the operation with a busy hand: first heated the body, transferred oxygen, injected anticoagulant drugs, and finally injected methanol, an early freeze protector.
After infusing the protective agent, they put Bedford in a polyethylene foam box filled with dry ice and moved it next to the liquid nitrogen container in the warehouse, adding a bit of liquid nitrogen to the container until the temperature dropped to zero to 196 degrees Celsius.
The body was frozen, but the trouble had just begun.
“Incidentally...”
Bedford left $100,000 to pay for subsequent equipment maintenance and research.
But as soon as he was frozen into the liquid nitrogen tank, his wife and children came to the door and said that the money belonged to the family.
But the research agency insisted that "the agreement clearly stated that the money would be used to maintain the equipment."
The quarrel between the two sides ended up in court, where the judge read the agreement, checked Bedford's will, and finally awarded the money to the research institute.
But this money is not enough to spend, the rental of the warehouse, the cost of liquid nitrogen, the maintenance of equipment, each month to spend money, less than two years to see the end.
Even worse, in 1979, the freezing device that kept Bedford’s body failed because of a power outage.
When the results came the next day, the temperature of the liquid nitrogen tank had risen from zero to 196 degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius.
You know, in this temperature range, human cells will form sharp ice crystals and puncture the cells.
As soon as the staff opened the container, it was found that Bedford’s skin on the face had been slightly scratched, and a strain had appeared next to his nose.
Moreover, due to the power failure, the equipment was broken, so Nelson went to Bedford's family and said, "If the equipment needs to be replaced, it will cost an additional $50,000 for maintenance".
The family had been concerned about the previous dispute, directly refused, and also responded to a lawsuit, accusing him of poor management.
The court ultimately ordered Nelson to pay $30,000 in compensation to the family, which directly overwhelmed the research institution, which had already lacked money, and dispersed the employees.
The family had to urgently contact another agency dedicated to the freezing of human bodies, the Arco Life Continuation Foundation.
The foundation was the few institutions in the U.S. at the time that were working on human body freezing, more specialized than the previous warehouses.
The family ended up paying tens of thousands of dollars to the Arco Life Continuation Foundation, which agreed to receive the remains.
For the next few decades, Bedford sat quietly in Alcor's tank of liquid nitrogen.
Finally, the time came to 2017, exactly 50 years after Bedford was frozen, and it was also the agreed "thawing attempt" time.
Arco's staff began preparations three months in advance, sought specialists in neurology and cardiovascular sciences, and prepared specialized unfreezing equipment, which could be prepared to the half of the work, and found a big problem.
Through the observation window on the liquid nitrogen tank, the staff saw large red spots on Bedford’s face, more visible spots on the nose than before, and a few clear needles on the arm.
In order to further confirm the situation, they scanned the inside of the body with special imaging equipment, and the result was even worse: the blood vessels were cracked everywhere, and the liver had become hard because of the toxicity of that year, and even the basic structure was almost gone.
The most important thing is brain examination. Experts observed the brain cells sampled from the remains with a high-power microscope, and found that the cells were full of holes left by ice crystals, and the neural network responsible for transmitting signals had long been broken into pieces.
In vernacular, it's just an empty shell, trying to resurrect him? There's no chance.
Alcor finally announced that the thawing plan was cancelled. Because with the current technology of mankind, it is impossible to resurrect Bedford.
Although the dream of resurrection was shattered, Bedford's family made an unexpected decision: not to cremate, not to bury, and continue to freeze!
Their reasoning sounds a bit hearty and a bit stubborn: “What if in 50 years, technology breakthroughs again?”
So to this day, James Bedford is still lying quietly in a tank of liquid nitrogen in Alcor.
He has gone from being “the world’s first person to be frozen” to being “the longest person to be frozen.”
With him there are hundreds of the same “freezing residents” who are all waiting for a tomorrow not to know if it will come.
But one thing is certain: this guy never expected that his "sleep" not only became a global online celebrity, but also conveniently started a business called "cryonics".
Now there are several institutions around the world that offer freezing services, the price ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many people are willing to pay that money and buy a ticket for the "future resurrection".
Do you think it is science or science fiction? hope or illusion?
The only thing that is certain is that the story of Bedford is not yet over.
“The source of information...”