CI Case 158
CI patient #158 was a 39 year old male from Toronto. The patient was a CI member at the time of his death.
The patient died in the hospital during the early morning hours of September 27, 2017. Immediately after the patient was pronounced dead, local standby helpers cooled him with water ice. Chest compressions were performed until the funeral director arrived. The next of kin had made arrangements in advance with the local funeral director for the patient’s transport. The patient was then transported to the funeral home and remained in water ice while the necessary paperwork was obtained for transportation to Michigan. He was driven to the facility from the Toronto area.
The patient arrived at the CI facility, in water ice, at 4:15 pm on the 28th of September, approximately 36 hours after death. There was a significant delay in his transportation while crossing the border from Canada into Michigan. The delay was unavoidable and the contracted funeral home was not at fault. The nasal temperature upon his arrival was 8.7c.
Hillary McCauley performed the perfusion. The perfusion was completed at 6:25 pm. During the perfusion there were 3.5 liters of 10% Eg solution used, 7 liters of 30% Eg solution used, and 24 liters of 70% VM1 solutions used. The final refractive index of the effluents exiting the right jugular vein was 1.4146. The final refractive index of the effluents exiting the left jugular vein was 1.4224. A refractive index of 1.4209 was obtained from the effluents exiting the right jugular vein in a previous reading, but the flow from the right jugular vein was almost stopped by the end of the perfusion, thus making it very difficult to obtain a pure sample. The average perfusion pressure was held at 125mm and metal cannulas were used. Flow rate started at 1.47 liters per minute and was reduced to 0.50 liters per minute by the end of the perfusion. The nasal temperature was 0.7c at the end of the perfusion.
There were no blood clots noted during the perfusion and there was adequate drainage from the jugular veins. Efforts were made to perfuse the entire body, but the decision was made to perfuse only the patient’s head due to rapid distention of the abdomen during perfusion with the 30% EG solution. Considering the patient’s cause of death, it was expected that there may be difficulties perfusing the body. Significant dehydration of the head and face was noted along with a bronzing color of the skin. Very minimal edema was noted around the mouth at the end of the perfusion. The perfusion of the head was very successful.
The patient was then transferred to the computer controlled cooling chamber to cool to liquid nitrogen temperature. The human vitrification program was selected and the time needed to cool the patient to liquid nitrogen temperature was five days and 11 hours. The patient was then placed in a cryostat for long-term cryonic storage.