Freezing People is (Not) Easy

by Bob Nelson

  During many of our relationship’s dramatic moments, she had been the one crying or about to cry; now it was my turn. She grabbed a bottle of aloe and smeared it onto the burns where I’d pressed against the hot metal.

  “I lost them. They’re gone.” I said. We didn’t speak again that night, she just held me in her arms, smoothed my hair, and tried with love to ease the pain.

  After a week of dwelling on the capsule loss, I knew I had to inform the families directly. If their relatives wanted to beat me up, then so be it. Remembering all the thrashings from my childhood, I figured this probably would be the first one I truly deserved.

  It was now 1974, the better part of a decade since I had taken the reins with such lofty dreams, guiding CSC toward developing facilities for cryonic suspension. Now I confronted the most god-awful task of my entire life. I must tell Guy de la Poterie that I had failed to keep his daughter safe and preserved. After all his effort and mine, his daughter’s capsule failed when I was far away visiting my friend.

  I also needed to face Mildred’s sons and inform them of their mother’s loss in the same capsule. I had lost touch with Pauline Mandell, Steven’s mother, and didn’t know how to contact her.

  I called Guy from my mom’s home in Boston before I left for Montreal to confirm our visit.

  He agreed to meet me at the airport but asked, “Why the sudden visit?”

  I avoided answering, asking instead, “Can we meet for coffee?”

  “A cup of coffee? You’re always telling me how tight money is, and now you want to fly to Montreal for a cup of coffee?” I could hear the panic in his voice as his French accent grew stronger. “What’s happening with my Genevieve?”

  He sounded frantic, but I still didn’t want to answer. I looked around my mom’s house. It felt strange being here and being yelled at. I was a kid again—a twelve-year-old screw-up.

  I couldn’t stall any longer, making him wait and worry just so that my confession could match the script I had played out in my mind.

  There was such agony in my heart as I cleared my throat and shakily began. I told him about my trip and how the capsule had failed while I was away. “I had made arrangements for the capsule, but it still happened. The responsibility is mine.”

  Guy listened silently; then after a long pause he asked, “How long was the capsule without liquid nitrogen?”

  “My best guess is five days. I am so sorry, Guy.”

  I waited in silence for a few minutes before Guy asked, “Does the capsule have liquid nitrogen now?”

  “Yes, I refilled it, and it’s being checked daily by my assistant Frank Farrell.”

  “Well that’s good,” he said. “I guess there is nothing we can do but continue storing her.”

  It was a reaction I had not anticipated. Several days of decomposition seemed like an eternity. Numb with disbelief but not wanting to inflict additional pain, I cowardly replied, “I’ll do that if it’s what you want.”

  After this brief conversation, Guy said he was not feeling well and hung up.

  I was tempted to call Guy back and fully explain the ramifications of the capsule failure, but I never did—and I never went to Canada.

  My next stop was cold and rainy Des Moines, Iowa. Terry Harrington was standing by the gate with a masculine-looking woman. She was dressed all in black, carrying a black umbrella and clutching Terry’s arm. We went to a nearby restaurant, and Terry introduced her as his wife. Now I felt sure I’d entered some alternate reality. The last time I saw Terry and his brother, I felt convinced they were gay, and now he was married.

  I raised my eyebrows and shook my head, but I needed to focus on my difficult task of telling Terry the truth. His brother, Dennis, didn’t meet us, and I felt less stressed facing Terry since I had already spoken to Guy. I told Terry that the capsule had failed for several days. To my surprise he did not appear at all upset. Like Guy, he did not realize the consequences of that capsule failure.

  He repeated what Guy had said. “I guess the only thing we can do is fill it up and keep on going.”

  I sat there stunned, my coffee cup poised in midair. Years earlier I had carefully educated both Guy and the Harrington brothers about cryonics, yet both seemed completely unfazed by those days of soaring temperatures. I opened my mouth to object, but again I took the coward’s way and didn’t correct his assumptions.

  Without much more to say, our meeting quickly ended. I flew to Michigan, where Professor Ettinger met me in the waiting area at the Detroit airport. We sat down in the lounge, and I told him about the capsule failure.

  He was saddened by the news, but he had always been a wise, incredibly perceptive man. He patted my hand. “Disappointments on our path are the price we sometimes pay for success.” He was reassuring and offered his condolences.

  I couldn’t let it go that easily. “All my grand ideas and lofty goals, all the excitement from those early heady days reduced to this. . . . Everything seems impossible now.”

  My voice trailed off. I hated this realization, because I had begun this journey with such overwhelming certainty. All those early hopes, those early feelings that I was creating a monumental shift in humanity, had been reduced to this capsule failure—my utter failure. That shift—that death of a dream—was just as painful as the death of these three people. I couldn’t acknowledge the death of my dream. I had to persevere.

  Professor Ettinger put his arm over my shoulder. “The purpose of life is to discover the purpose of life. This is a tragedy, but a bigger tragedy would be if you lost your faith.”

  I melted into an embrace and stayed like that for a long while, just rocking back and forth on the airport couch. He understood my heartbreak and held me for a long time. With him I didn’t have to be strong or the man with all the answers. He truly was the father I had always needed. Eventually I pulled back and steeled myself to say good-bye to this wonderful man.

  I arrived home in California thoroughly confused. What had just happened? To know what to do next, I had to understand the reactions of Guy de la Poterie and Terry Harrington.

  My far-fetched conclusion was that there might be some hope left for those in the capsule. Although neither my heart nor my mind could believe it, I decided to keep the capsule operating for as long I could manage.

  And so began three more years of filling the capsule with liquid nitrogen. I rarely dwelled on the one-week failure and certainly never mentioned it to other CSC members; I had learned well from the Mafia not to tell people more than necessary. During that time I spent thousands of dollars of my own money on my fool’s errand—I knew the one week at hot temperatures had ended everything for my three heroes. It was the most basic lesson of low-temperature biology.

  One day in early October 1974, I was at the CSC office in Santa Monica when I received a phone call from Tom Porter. His six-year-old son Sam was dying of leukemia, and he wanted to discuss placing him in suspension. I scheduled a meeting for nine the next morning at Klockgether’s mortuary. When I arrived and introduced myself, Tom explained that doctors had given his son a week or two.

  Tom had investigated cryonics and wanted to obtain information about storing his son’s capsule at the Chatsworth vault. He had already purchased a new upright capsule manufactured by Andonian Cryogenics, a competitor of MVE. I did a quick calculation in my head; the capsule would fit inside the vault with its lid one foot below the ceiling. All he needed was a safe, legal place to store, service, and monitor his son’s capsule.

  Tom had gray hair and was very overweight, probably from overworking and dealing with his son’s illness. I agreed to meet him later that week to finalize our deal. He was an assistant district attorney, and since he already had a capsule, those two factors increased my confidence that he would keep his word and not disappoint me like so many had before. I tried asking him about his son Sam, but Tom merely described him as a sweet
boy. Although quite articulate, Tom never divulged his personal turmoil.

  He promised he would make all arrangements and payments to fill the capsule with liquid nitrogen each month. He also wanted to monitor all the steps of safe storage and maintenance. He trusted no one else. “The perfusion, capsule space, and security will cost ten thousand dollars, and that’s on top of the monthly liquid nitrogen replacement.” I paused and breathed loudly for emphasis. “However, if you allow another person in that capsule with your son, I’ll do it for three thousand dollars.”

  He didn’t hesitate. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of cash, counted off three thousand dollars, and asked, “When can I have the capsule delivered?”

  I thumbed the bills and answered, “In two days.”

  “Would 1:00 p.m. be okay?”

  I agreed but was somewhat taken aback by the speed at which all this was transpiring. “Tom, you sure don’t waste time.”

  “I can’t afford to,” he answered. “Between my job and my son being so close to death, time is invaluable to me.”

  It bothered me that there was no documentation of these decisions, but Tom wanted no paperwork; he didn’t want any word of his son’s cryonic suspension getting out. He knew that his extended family would have had fierce objections. I figured an assistant DA would want a record of his agreements, but this one didn’t.

  I was waiting at the vault on Thursday when the new upright capsule arrived, accompanied by a crane. I couldn’t resist touching the shiny metallic container; it already felt hot from the sun’s radiation, and I was amazed again at the temperature drop between the inside and outside of the cylinder—a 400°F difference across six inches. If I had had something like this capsule for my other patients, they would still have been with us.

  Afterwards we developed a mutual trust, and he allowed me to monitor the liquid nitrogen delivery for him. Tom was dependable and always did exactly what he promised.

  About a week later, on October 11, his little son passed away. After Joseph Klockgether completed the perfusion, the boy was placed into the stainless-steel capsule to await the future. Over the next three years, Tom and his wife came out several times to visit their son. And as Tom had promised, he was at the cemetery each month when the liquid nitrogen truck arrived.

  On two occasions they wanted to open the capsule and view their son. Although I didn’t want to intrude on such intensely personal moments, it amazed me to see how much it meant to Tom and his wife to see their son as he appeared when he died—still young and still very much their little boy. The nitrogen hadn’t been refilled yet that day, so the liquid level was low enough that they could touch Sam’s cold face. His wife reached into the capsule with a tentative hand and fingered her precious son’s hair. She continued for several minutes, biting her lip to ward off tears. I could tell that the memories overwhelmed her. She brought back her hand as though the cold capsule had turned hot, and she buried her face into Tom’s shoulder to muffle her crying.

  I had been involved with cryonics for many years, almost a decade at that point, and had been witness to some of the most tumultuous moments in people’s lives. However, I realized that cryonics provided another benefit over normal burial techniques. When a person, especially a child, dies, there are so many emotions with the first fiery flood of grief, but also so many responsibilities with the funeral and arrangements. With burial or cremation, those horrific and hectic days are the only opportunity for parents to see their child for the last time before that chance is gone forever. With cryonics, that final good-bye, that last moment of seeing their child, is delayed into the future, when parents are better able to cope with the tragedy of their child’s death. As difficult as it was for Tom and his wife to see their son, I watched the profound comfort they gained from the two visits.

  I had received no money from Pauline Mandell or the Harrington brothers. Occasionally Guy de la Poterie sent me fifty or a hundred dollars. The vault was no longer a joy or my great legacy; instead it was an untenable burden pushing me into early residence at the Chatsworth cemetery. I had run out of money, energy, and the expectation that the CSC could be saved. Once I lost the hope of some guardian angel or miraculous benefactor coming to our aid, I caved. The battle was over, and I could carry the load no longer. I had nothing more to offer the cryonics program.

  Three years after the capsule failure, I wrote Guy de la Poterie, explaining that due to the constantly failing capsule, lack of funds, along with my own physical and mental state, I was unable to continue. My wife had divorced me since the capsule failure, and I had neglected my children. I wrote a similar letter to the Harrington brothers. For several years I had been unable to contact Pauline Mandell, so I did not write to her.

  I was broken and impoverished. Starting life over again was like climbing a mountain as a sick and naked man. Somehow, I thought, I would survive. It was late fall in 1977, and I still worked as a big-screen repairman. Almost half my salary had gone into the vault.

  In that moment I felt like Sisyphus, the mythological Greek king who was punished with the task of forever rolling a rock up a steep hill, only to watch it roll back down and then have to repeat the procedure forever. Was I guilty of hubris or of too-great optimism? What was my fatal flaw?

  I had taken my last step in my walk across the desert. I was barely a step away from my own demise. I had to let go, but my heart kept screaming, No! No! Don’t let go; hold on just a little longer. I could not, and as my hand slipped from the vault handle, I wept my final tear and braced myself for my life yet to come.

  Chapter 14

  The End of the Dream

  I informed Tom Porter that I was resigning as custodian of the vault but assured him that he could continue his son’s suspension for as long as he wanted and gave him the keys to the vault. I expected him to move the capsule to another facility or hire someone to monitor it. Much to my surprise, although the capsule was functional and in good condition, Tom decided to end his son’s suspension after about a year of servicing it himself. His Catholic parents had religious objections, and he was worried about appearing to be custodian of the Chatsworth vault.

  Around March 1979 I cut open the Mandell capsule. Joseph Klockgether removed both children from their capsules as their parents had requested and delivered them to his mortuary for a service and conventional burial in Orange County. Mildred Harrington, Steven Mandell, and Pedro Ladesma were also removed and placed in conventional metal boxes called Ziegler cases. Louis Nisco, Marie Sweet, Russ Stanley, and Helen Kline were left sealed in their capsule. Several years back the Harrington brothers had their father disinterred a year after he was buried and shipped to Chatsworth to be with their mother. Terry had wanted his father to be cryonically suspended, but Joseph and I refused. What would be the point? He remained in his original coffin. They still reside in the Chatsworth vault today, lined up side by side but simply interred like every other resident at the cemetery, their story sadly over.

  It was rumored later that the maintenance of Tom’s son had been irregular, with one or more episodes of thawing that left visible signs of damage; however, that was definitely untrue. As reliable as an atomic clock, Tom Porter never once was late with a capsule fill. The young boy’s service was held at the Rennaker Mortuary, and Joseph Klockgether said he looked perfect. I suspect there might have been some cracking of the skin caused by his direct and sudden placement into the liquid nitrogen. Back in those early days, we did not have the capability to bring the body temperature down to -320°F over a two-day period, as we do today.

  I don’t believe that Tom Porter or Genevieve’s dad, Guy de la Poterie, blamed me personally for the capsule failure and the facility’s closure. However, they were bitterly disappointed, and I am sure they felt little goodwill toward me. They had nothing to say to me. They had lost their children twice. Seeing their compounded heartache was one of the saddest experiences of my lif
e.

  Just as the vault was closing, my day of reckoning had arrived. The repercussions of my soft heart, bad decisions, and resulting mismanagement hit me like freight train. I had been such a fool, but I had no one to blame but myself.

  With cryonics, I had aimed high and flown high, believing that the wonder of preserved life was within my grasp. I wanted to be like the Wright Brothers and became Icarus instead. And like Icarus, I fell hard and far.

  I thought that my last time at the vault was the bottom and nothing could be worse. But soon I learned there was always room for more grief when you’re on the wrong path.

  My friend and the best helper to all cryonics believers, Joseph Klockgether, had malpractice insurance protecting his mortuary business. It was a delicious deep pocket, an invitation to those who loved money. My fear of a brewing monster tornado was well founded.

  After I shut down the vault, I worked full-time as a technician for RCA as a big-screen repairman. For a while I felt happily lost in boring normalcy and domesticity. That changed when Joseph called me one rainy day.

  “Hi, Bob. I’ve got some bad news. We’re getting sued.”

  “Sued? By whom? For what?”

  “The Halperts—”

  “Oh, them.” I breathed easier; we hadn’t done anything for them, and their case wouldn’t get any traction.

  Ironically, the Halpert family had initiated a complaint against Joseph Klockgether and me for not taking control of their mother’s storage and maintenance at the CSC vault. We had never met any of the family and had nothing to do with the freezing and storage of their mother.

  Joseph had never heard of the Halperts. He had nothing to do with CSNY, the Halperts, or my trip to New York City; but he had malpractice insurance, and that made him a target.

  “We’re getting sued for not transferring a body from CSNY to your facility,” he said. “I’d never heard of them.”

  “Joe, I’m so sorry. I dragged you into this, but this is beyond bizarre. I can’t believe they can sue me, let alone you. They’ll get tossed out.”