After more than half a century, everyone is curious about whether or not that man can be brought back to life and whether or not miracles can be performed using current, highly developed human science. Is it possible for anyone to have the technology to bring someone back to life? Many individuals would like to know the answer to that question. And so did Dr. James Hiram Bedford half a century ago. The man volunteered to freeze his body with the hope of being revived in 2017 because he was desperate to live.
3 years have passed since that important milestone, everyone wants to know what happened to the man who was once considered the richest man in America…
James Hiram Bedford is a World War I veteran and a psychology professor at the University of California. He had two marriages, traveled much, and lived a full life in the middle of the 20th century. In addition to traveling around Greece, Turkey, Spain, England, Scotland, Germany, and Switzerland, he hunted in Africa and visited the Amazon rainforest. Additionally, Bedford was among the first to travel to Alaska and northwest Canada via the Alcan Highway.
When James was given a terminal kidney cancer diagnosis in 1967, the disease had spread to his lungs, and given the state of medicine at the time, he was forced to accept the death penalty. James had previously read about the concept in Dr. Robert Ettinger’s book The Prospect of Immortality. Ettinger is regarded as the father of body freezing experiments and the creator of the Cryonics Institute, a facility that specializes in post-mortem body freezing services. Professor James underwent the initial cryonic procedures done by Robert Nelson. After his death on the afternoon of January 12, 1967, he received an injection of dimethyl sulfoxide.
Previously, in April 1966, a woman was also frozen in Arizona, but only lasted a few months. There is speculation that because she was embalmed too late, her cells had partially decomposed and if she had been “resurrected”, her brain would have been severely damaged.
The story of James’s body freezing process was revealed in the Daily Telegraph (UK) in January 2017.
Accordingly, James said his last words to Robert Nelson, now 82 years old, 1 of 3 scientists directly involved in the body freezing event: “I want you to understand that I did not do this with the thought that I would be revived. I did this in the hope that one day my descendants will benefit from this wonderful scientific solution”.
James left about $100,000 (more than VND 2 billion at the current exchange rate) for the freezing process before he passed away. At the age of 73, James experienced a heart arrest in a nursing home on January 12, 1967. In order to help him keep his blood flowing through his body, Dr. Renault Able gave him cardiac massage and artificial respiration. To save his internal organs, dimethyl sulfoxide was then given after all of his blood had been extracted. James was finally submerged in a liquid nitrogen tank that was 196 degrees Celsius below zero.
In 1991, Alcor decided to open James’s body and check his cryogenic condition after 24 years. Cutting through the metal coating of the jar, Alcor technicians found James in a pale blue sleeping bag, wrapped in a nylon strap. They moved him to a liquid nitrogen tank covered with polystyrene foam and began examining him.
According to the specialists, James’ body was in good preservation. Despite his advanced age of 73, his features appeared youthful. He had two holes in his torso and patches of discolored skin on his neck and chest. Professor James had a bloody odor coming from his lips and nostrils. His corneas were the white as chalk, and his eyes were half open. His right leg was crossed over his left, exposing his legs. Although there were a few surface fissures in the skin, James’ preservation was deemed to be good overall. After that, Alcor personnel put Professor James in a fresh sleeping bag and submerged him in liquid nitrogen while he waited. Now, three years after the promised time for James to wake up, he is still just a “mummy” stacked vertically with 145 other frozen people…