Inside the strange world of cryonics, where people are …

On a bright Sunday afternoon, in a colourfully decorated scout hut on the outskirts of Sheffieldin Britain, a dozen or so people are clustered around a table, on which lies a plastic human torso. It looks like the kind of prop that might be used by trainee doctors, the chest cut away to reveal its white ribcage and pink intestines.

But these are not doctors they are members of Cryonics UK, the charity that cryogenically froze a 14-year-old girl who won the right to have her body preserved after her death from cancer, and whose heartbreaking landmark court case was reported this week.

Cryonics UK claims to be the only group in Britain working in the legal but unregulated field of cryonic preservation where a person is frozen in time after their death, and then woken up at a point when scientific advances allow them to be revived and cured of whatever caused them to die. The not-for-profit organization charges CAD$25,000to freeze and transport a body to storage facilities in America or Russia.

Today, members of the group, many of whom have themselves paid to be frozen after death, are rehearsing the preservation process. They watch closely as a clear solution is pumped through plastic tubes snaking around the torso a biological version of antifreeze which prevents the bodys cells from shattering when its core temperature is lowered.

The 14-year-old, known only as JS, was the tenth Briton to undergo the procedure, and the first British child. Her mother had supported her wish to be cryogenically frozen, but her father had opposed it, and so the girl had asked a High Court judge to intervene. In a letter to Justice Peter Jackson, she wrote: I dont want to die but I know I am going toI want to live and live longer I want to have this chance. She learned that the judge had granted her wish shortly before her death in a London hospital on October 17. With money raised by her maternal grandparents, the girl made arrangements with the Cryonics Institute, a cryopreservation company based in Michigan; Cryonics UK prepared her body and arranged for it to be flown there.

Interest in cryo-preservation is growing. Across the world, around 2,000 people are thought to be signed up for cryonic preservation, with about 200 already frozen after death.

A majority are from the scientific community, says Marji Klima, of Alcor, another cryopreservation company in the U.S. Many people understand the direction science is heading.

In Sheffield, Mike Carter, a 71-year-old retired geotechnical engineer who has paid $120,000 from his savings to have his head preserved after he dies. (Many cryonicists choose this option, the idea being that the brain contains all the vital matter, and in the future can be attached to a new body or robot.)

He says he found the idea of death upsetting from an early age. I decided that, despite what was drummed into me at school, there was no evidence for either a god or an immortal soul. My conclusion was therefore that death was followed by oblivion.

In 2008, after reading about cryogenics in a science fiction novel, he looked online, almost on a whim, to see whether it was actually possible, and discovered the existence of storage facilities abroad and the Cryonics UK community.

While accepting that the idea of reanimation was something of a long shot, he says my mantra was, and still is, what have I got to lose?

He says his two daughters are all right with it, and while his wife is not happy, I support her in her views and shes agreed to support me in mine.

David Farlow, a thoughtful 34-year-old property manager from west London, is also at the rehearsal.

Having come across the concept as a computer science student at Kings College London, Farlow went to his first training session in 2008, which became the first of many. His friends, he says, understand once hes explained the idea. His family does not share his interest, but he wishes they did. If I was going to live longer, then Id like my family members to be there, he says.

Critics of cryopreservation say, variously, that it offers false hope in a process not backed by science, that it is unethical to live longer than ones natural lifespan, and even, perhaps prematurely, that it could exacerbate the worlds overpopulation problem.

Aside from the many scientific hurdles that would need to be overcome to resurrect frozen humans, the cost of preservation is prohibitively high, with the most expensive packages at $270,000.

However, life insurance packages are now available which allow you to spread the costs out, an option that Farlow is considering. An office in Devon called Unusual Risks Mortgage & Insurance Services helps would-be cryonicists route their life insurance to cryogenics securing, as it were, a chance at a second life in exchange for down-payments of $75 amonth.

Its like being on a plane, and they announce that its going to crash, and theres nothing you can do.They offer you a parachute, and theres only a small chance of it working, but would you take it?

In the U.S., Alcor and the Cryonics Institute employ trained personnel to carry out the urgent preparatory work on a body before it is placed in storage. In the UK, this is done by volunteers who undergo training in sessions. The organization describes itself as a mutual assistance group and some who sign up to be frozen also train to be volunteers. Cryonics UK says it has around 50 members on call to help with preservation. Their first job is to administer chest compressions, as soon as is feasible from the moment of death, to supply blood and oxygen to the brain to prevent the cells from deteriorating. The body is then packed in ice and transported to a cryonics facility where an embalmer makes an incision in the corpses neck and gradually replaces the blood with a cryoprotectant solution, using a cannula like the one on the table in the scout hut, with a cryoprotectant solution.

Finally, sealed in a well-insulated box packed with dry ice, the body is flown to the storage facility where it is preserved in liquid nitrogen at -196 C.

Mike Carter has now helped to carry out three cryopreservations, including one on a terminally ill person he had got to know through Cryonics UK.

The first time, he says, he was nervous as hell but in the end it went pretty well. Once, he says, there was a situation where the family members were uneasy with it, but they still supported it because they knew it was the persons wishes.

Scientists remain sceptical of the practice of cryonics. This week, it was revealed that doctors at the hospital where JS was cared for felt deep unease about her decision and accused Cryonics UK of being underequipped and disorganized in its handling of her body after she died last month.

In a statement, Cryonics UK said: We always seek to negotiate before acting and our protocols were carried out with the permission of the hospital. A successful outcome was achieved as a result of the determination of the family and their legal representation and the resourcefulness of Cryonics UK.

It said that better regulations of cryopreservation would be likely to lead to more people signing up.

For many, the notion of bringing humans back to life remains very much the stuff of science fiction. But the extraordinary case of JS sheds light on the small, but growing handful of people willing to take a leap of faith.

Its like being on a plane, and they announce that its going to crash, and theres nothing you can do, says Peter Farlow. They offer you a parachute, and theres only a small chance of it working, but would you take it?

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Inside the strange world of cryonics, where people are ...