The UK has the highest number of cryogenics members outside of the US according to the latest data from an organisation offering the process (Picture: Cryonics Institute, cryonics.org)

Suspended in a deep freeze, the growing number of ‘patients’ at the world’s biggest cryo-preservation facilities are taking a dice roll at another life.

Some have been there for nearly 50 years.

Despite the current odds being vanishingly small, they represent an increasing number of people opting for an indefinite existence at -196C after their legal deaths.

The sleek white vats that stand in rows at the Cryonics Institute (CI) storage facilities in Michigan represent an increasing number of bodies, body parts and pets from around the world – all opting for an indefinite existence at -196°C after their legal deaths.

Frozen in liquid nitrogen, they await possible future technological advances to revive them.

Among those ‘living in this ‘living’ in this arctic limbo are chefs, students, secretaries and professors. And it turns out that Brits are the most keen takers outside the US.

CI president Dennis Kowalksi tells Metro.co.uk that he regards the centres as a place of ‘awe and responsibility’.

But it’s more of a waiting game than a place worthy of a sci-fi imagining.

The longest-running patient, Rhea Ettinger, has been in her sub-zero waiting room since 1977.

Her son Robert C. W. Ettinger, a decorated World War Two veteran regarded as the founding father of cryonics, is also in indefinite storage, along with his first and second wives.

Mr Kowalski conjured the visions of Leonardo da Vinci as he spoke of his conviction that humankind will one day be able to reverse engineer nature, and achieve the CI’s holy grail of reanimating the clinically dead.  

He said: ‘Ironically, while the number of members is growing, I’m only surprised that we’re not more popular.

‘What we are doing is pretty rational when you think about it. Cryonics is like an ambulance ride to a future hospital that may or may not exist some day.  

‘While we give no guarantees, if you are buried or cremated your chances of coming back are zero.  

‘We are therefore a Pascal’s wager, or a gamble with little to lose and all to gain.’ 

The body is placed in ice immediately after death under the protocol for transport to long term storage in the US (Picture: Cryonics Institute, cryonics.org)

‘Responsibility and awe’

Inside the main, hangar-like facility, ‘cryostats’ housing around 250 patients stand in neat rows.  

The 7,000 square foot centre in Clinton Township, otherwise known as a farming community, is now at capacity so newcomers who have paid for full-body preservation at prices starting at $28,000 (£22,000) are being stored at a new facility nearby. Around 10 or 20 places have been taken up so far. 

‘While we are the largest cryonics company in the world with the most patients in suspension, our two centres in Michigan are not as sci-fi as you might imagine,’ Mr Kowalski explains.

Alan Sinclair is part of a UK cryonics group which helps to transport people to the US in accordance with their wishes (Picture: James Clarke for Metro.co.uk)

‘It’s more practical. We are affordable to the average person through life insurance and we are non-profit, with all of our records open to public scrutiny.

‘I guess if anything, when I walk between the cryo-stats, I feel a sense of responsibility and awe.

‘We don’t know if this will work but we believe life is precious and that there is no greater value than the love of our family and friends who we wish to save.’

Of the living 1,975 CI members around the world, 128 who are interested in having their bodies, body tissue or pets deep frozen are British.

Only the US is better represented, with 1,374 residents signed up, according to figures released in December by the institute.

The process for cryo-preservation starts after death with the desired end being at an unspecified time in the future (Picture: Cryonics Institute, cryonics.org)

‘A chance at the future’

Once they are declared clinically dead, members’ bodies are placed in ice and transported to the new facility, where a perfusion takes place to replace the body’s blood and water with a special cryo-protection mixture which stops ice forming. The solution acts as a form of anti-freeze for ultra-low temperatures.

The patient is then placed in a computer-controlled unit and cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature at –321F over five and a half days before being carefully lowered into the cryostat.

Scientific advances — particularly in the field of nanotechnology and its potential to work at the level of the human cell structure — are helping to make the case for the journeys.  

Even if the elixir becomes reality, however, the science would, in many cases, also need to reverse the ageing process and the condition which caused a person’s medical death.  

Mr Kowalksi is clear that his organisation only offers a gamble, albeit with the odds increasing with rapid development in fields also including artificial intelligence and stem cell treatment.  

‘We offer a chance at the future,’ he says.

The storage vats contain the bodies of people who have signed up for a possible future revival (Picture: Cryonics Institute, cryonics.org)

‘We were founded in 1976 and everything we’ve said is going to happen is starting to come true. Advances in fields such as genetic engineering, stem cell regeneration and artificial intelligence are being used in conventional science and medicine where they didn’t exist before. 

‘A hundred years ago if I said there was a technique for bringing back the dead I might have been run out of town, even if I had explained how to use CPR or a defibrillator to revive someone.

‘These days they are recognised techniques. The same thing can be said with heart or liver transplants, which would have been seen as Frankenstein-like in the past. Another example would be Leonard da Vinci and his visions of flying machines, which he produced more than 500 years ago.  

‘The same thing is starting to happen with cryonics, we just haven’t worked out how to fully reverse-engineer nature yet. Advances are also being made in stem cell treatments that may one day be able to reverse whatever killed you as well as the ageing process.’  

The Cryonics Institute has members around the world who have placed their faith in future technology to revive them (Picture: Cryonics Institute, cryonics.org)

Critics of cryonics view the process as fanciful pseudoscience, with Dr Miriam Stoppard, a journalist and doctor, previously saying the process ‘robs the dying of their dignity’.

Her comments appear to have had little impact on the future-proofers, with one of the best-known British members, Alan Sinclair, telling Metro.co.uk last year that he hopes to outlive his grandkids.

The 85-year-old granddad, from East Sussex, acknowledged that there is ‘no guarantee’ of a second life but said that ‘coming out of suspension at 185 or 1085 is a good idea’.

Mr Kowlaski, who is also signed up to go into a frozen stasis, also has a strong conviction that the bodies stowed away inside the giant vats will one day be reawakened.

‘The ambulance is there, and if technological trends continue, the hospital will be too,’ he says.

Dream on you gullible fools.