Southern Hemisphere's first cryogenically frozen client at rest in regional New South Wales facility
Cryogenics has been explored in many lights in film and media. (YouTube)
Philip Rhoades has spent 14 years waiting to give dead people a second chance at life.
Those years of preparation have finally been put to the test.
Southern Cryonics, which operates the Southern Hemisphere's first known cryonics facility, has just announced it has cryogenically frozen its first client at its Holbrook facility.
A Sydney man, who died this month in his 80s, has become what the company refers to as Patient One.
The company said it was a Southern Hemisphere first and a complex process that had Mr Rhoades losing sleep.
"[It was] very stressful," Southern Cryonics' facility manager said.
"That was what was keeping me awake for a week because there are a number of different procedures to go through for different days, and there were a number of situations that might have gone wrong if we hadn't prepared properly."
Welcoming the first client
The Southern Cryonics team has been ready and preparing to accept bodies from this year, but their first client was slightly unexpected.
"There were a couple of other people who were existing members who we thought might be likely candidates for being the first but, as it turned out, it was someone who wasn't an existing member," Mr Rhoades said.
"His family rang up out of the blue and we had about a week to prepare and get organised."
Mr Rhoades said the team had tested all the cryonics equipment and were mostly prepared.
"But it's still a little bit different when you are doing a real case," he said.
Preparing for life after death
The first client died on the morning of May 12, 2024 at a hospital in inner Sydney.
The 10-hour process of preserving his body in the hope of it being brought back to life began immediately.
Mr Rhoades had been waiting patiently in Sydney for news of the client's expected death, and quickly caught a train to the hospital, stopping to collect bags of ice from a store on the way.
The client's death certificate was swiftly produced, and his body was moved into the hospital's cold room and packed in ice to bring it down to around 6 degrees Celsius.
The company said the client was then moved to A O'Hare Funeral Directors at Leichhardt where doctors and perfusionists, who operate heart-lung bypass machines, worked to pump a liquid, which acts as a type of anti-freeze, through the body to help preserve cells and lower the body's temperature.
He was then wrapped in special type of sleeping bag and packed in dry ice, while his body temperature was brought down to around minus 80 degrees Celsius.
The client was then transferred to Southern Cryonics' Holbrook facility the next day, where he remained on dry ice until a delivery of liquid nitrogen arrived.
His temperature was brought down to around minus 200 degrees Celsius in a computer-controlled cooling chamber, before being placed in a pod and lowered upside down into a dewar tank, a specialised vacuum storage vessel similar to a giant thermos, which can hold up to four people.
"We went through using crash test dummies and other things to make it as real as possible for all the testings that we went through, so all of that groundwork paid off," Mr Rhoades said.
The process cost the client $170,000 with additional fees for medical teams to help with the preservation process.
It also highlighted the challenges of working with patients outside metropolitan areas.
"With the people who are involved, all the different professionals, it's much easier if it happens in Sydney or possibly Melbourne," Mr Rhoades said.
"If you started getting out into the regional areas or the other states it starts becoming more difficult."
Success on ice
The head of the Melbourne School of Health Science, Professor Bruce Thompson, has described the process as "Star Trek in play", and raised concerns about the science and ethics of the sector.
Professor Thompson said a few hundred frozen cells in a small glass vial are currently able to be regenerated, but noted that is a significant step away from thawing out a human body, fixing the medical issue that killed the person, and bringing them back to life unharmed.
"I know the work just to actually unthaw some cells that are just sitting in a small little test tube and then making them alive again is a significant process," he said.
"Doing that for a whole human body — and it died for a reason at the end of the day — and then reversing that and then reviving that is a very, very long time away."
Professor Thompson said he understood why the cryonics sector was controversial, and that it raised ethical issues about bringing people back from the dead.
"The people who are actually doing this business are taking money off people at a time when [the client] is very, very vulnerable and, at this stage, there is no prospect at being able to revive that person and reverse this process," he said.
Professor Thompson said science, ethics and business models for the process were not prepared for the practice, but he did not rule out possible success in the very distant future.
"Never say never to anything because in my life I have seen some amazing things happen," he said.
Holbrook's future in freezing
The Holbrook facility currently holds one dewar that fits four bodies.
Another dewar is expected to be purchased soon.
The Holbrook site can fit up to 40 bodies with possibility for expansion, which could soon be needed.
More than 30 founding members have paid $50,000 each to kickstart the facility, which secures them a preservation space.
There are another 10 annual members also on the list.
Having now completed the first client's wish, 72-year-old Mr Rhoades hoped there would be someone around to help carry on the work when he dies.
"I'm a little bit anxious … so it would be nice if there was a 50-year-old someone who had similar skills or experience who might be able to take over if I get hit by a bus or something," he said.