GIRL’S Family had
Body hangs in £10 Walmart sleep bag
SUSPENDED in a £10 Walmart sleeping bag tied to a plywood board in the shape of a coffin, this is the frozen tomb where Britain’s only cryogenic child now rests.
Little more than 12 inches away from me, the 14-year-old schoolgirl is hung upsidedown in temperatures of -196°C while waiting to be brought back to life.
Before dying from cancer last month, the teenager was confident of her immortality, predicting it would be “200 years” before she would live again.
Today is her 20th day in the Cryostat – suspended in liquid nitrogen in a huge human Thermos flask. Her body was flown to the Cryogenic Institute in Clinton Township, Michigan, on October 25.
Andy Zawacki, the company’s chief operating officer, explains: “It is almost like they float once inside. We store up to six patients inside each Cryostat and they are suspended upside down on boards, wrapped in everyday normal sleeping bags.
“We have found they absorb liquid nitrogen very well and help preserve the body. Each patient is then hoisted above a Cryostat before we lower them in.
“There is nothing in between each patient. Their bodies are held by restraints while we leave a gap between their head and the end of the boards, so they don’t touch the floor.
“We have them upside down for safety reasons as if there is a liquid nitrogen leak it will be the head that is protected most.
“Effectively the bodies hang like modern mummies until we hope science will become so advanced they are brought back to life.” THE grandparents of a cryogenically frozen girl who died of cancer sold a house to pay the bill – despite doubts about their grandchild’s plan.
A family friend told last night how they offloaded land and property abroad to fund the £37,000 tab for keeping the 14-year-old at the Cryonics Institute in the US.
The girl won a High Court battle for the right to be frozen because her parents were at war over what to do after she succumbed to the rare form of bone cancer.
The friend said: “Her grandparents sold land and their house for this. They did not agree with it. They have worries of what will happen in 100 years, if it will work.
“They love their daughter and granddaughter, so they did it for them.”
It was the schoolgirl’s dying wish to be frozen in the hope a cure is found in the future. But while her mother supported her choice, her father – whom she had not seen in eight years – was against the move.
The teenager, who can only be identified as JS, went to court to resolve the issue. In