Bringing the dead back to life with cryoprotectant
(KFOX14) — If someone told you they had the secret to immortality, would you take it?
A company called Transtime in Nevada is a business that's literally trying to help people live forever.
“We take patients that have passed and preserve them until technology catches up and they can bring them back and cure whatever caused their death,” said Transtime Chief Technology Officer Steven Garan.
According to Garan, the company will freeze you in liquid nitrogen, and then bring you back to life whenever a cure for what killed you, is found.
“For you to be admitted to Transtime you have to be legally dead you have to have a death certificate and we will then start the process of cryogenic suspension,” Garan said.
Garan said when they receive a patient from the hospital, the company will infuse their blood with a cryoprotectant, similar to antifreeze.
They then cool the body to 321 degrees below zero, and place you inside a metal box, and lower the metal box into an insulated metal tube, called a dooer.
“That's basically a thermos and that holds temperature very well over a long period of time and over here we have our nitrogen, which is topped off every three weeks,” Garan said.
The bodies are placed upside down, so that if the nitrogen were to evaporate, your head would be the last thing to go.
The people waiting on the "other side," so to speak, are technically property of Transtime. Their bodies donated to research. But there's a cost.
“The cost is 150K ($150,000) and that covers the suspension and the reanimation,” Garan said.
Right now, Transtime has four patients; their longest has been there since 2003.
“Death is final and I think living is a better alternative to that,” Garan said.
Their pitch?
What do you have to lose?
While medical researchers continue to make advances by leaps and bounds, Transtime is hitting the pause button for you.
They'll take care of you, while the cure for whatever killed you, is discovered.
