A couple have signed up to be frozen after death in the hope of being brought back to life together in the future – but say if one of them doesn’t make it they will ‘pull the plug’ on the other.
Allan and Barbara Pease, from Queensland, will be cryogenically frozen together at a newly built facility in the New South Wales town of Holbrook, which is operated by Southern Cryonics and is the first facility of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
The couple, experts in body language, communication and relationships and married for 35 years, said they want their love story to continue even after death.
Speaking to 60 Minutes Australia, Allan said: ‘They have the technology to put us in, but they haven’t figured out how to get us out yet, and there’s always a risk. But the alternative is eternal blackness.
“When we come back, if they find a way to unfreeze us, if one of us doesn’t do the freezing properly, one of us will pull the plug. We both don’t want to do it alone, I don’t want to come back without her.
Allan and Barbara Pease, from Queensland, Australia, have signed up to be frozen and brought back to life in the future, but say if one is brought back without the other, they want scientists to ‘pull the plug on the other’ Pull’
Barbara added, “I don’t want to come back without him either. We don’t think about death, we just live in the moment and enjoy every second of it.’
Cryonics is an experimental field of research in which the bodies of the clinically dead are frozen at -196 degrees Celsius so that they can potentially be resuscitated if future medical advances permit.
When it is time for the couple, their bodies will be transferred from their home in Queensland to the cryonics facility in Holbrook, where their bodies will be frozen at sub-zero temperatures.
They will be placed in mental tanks where they will remain until science has evolved enough to extract them and bring them back to life, which could take as long as 100 years.
The couple admitted that they are not worried that the world will look very different when they return in the future.
Barbara said, “I think the world will definitely look different, but I’m excited about that. It would be great to come back and have our babies and grandchildren here, but even if they chose not to (be cryogenically frozen), there would still be descendants of us around.”
People in the industry admit there is no guarantee of a future revival and that the procedure itself has long been met with skepticism from medical experts. But cryonics enthusiasts are willing to take the gamble for a chance at life after death.
The couple, experts in body language, communication and relationships and married for 35 years, said they want their love story to continue even after death.
Interiors of chambers where bodies are encapsulated (pictured in a US facility) head first, feet up, down to an icy -196C
The new cryonics facility next to Holbrook Cemetery in New South Wales, Australia
Allan explained: ‘Cryonics is like, if you’re in a plane flying over the Alps and the captain comes along and says, ‘The engines are all gone, we’re going to crash in the next 15 minutes, but we do have experiential skills on board. Parachutes, they have never been used, but we think they will work”, would you like to take the parachute? Well, that’s what cryo-suspension is, it’s a parachute.’
So far, 50 Australians from all walks of life have paid $150,000 to secure a place at Southern Cryonics.
Southern Cryonics director Peter Tsolakides previously said this ABC news that it costs $50,000 for the process done immediately after death, which includes a chemical drip and staff waiting to act at the time of the expiration.
He said the remaining money will cover the company’s fees, and if anything remains, it will be returned to the deceased’s estate.
Another well-known freeze location in America is the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona.
From the outside it looks like any other warehouse. But inside lie the frozen dead bodies of hundreds of patients.
It’s on the pricier side: It costs people $200,000 to have their entire body stored in a high-tech freezer, but there is an option to put just the brain on ice for a discounted price of $80,000.
The number of patients at the Michigan center has grown dramatically from about 600 in 2006 to nearly 1,975 in 2023.
Another well-known freeze site in America is the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona (photo)
The longest-running patient, named Rhea Ettinger, has been there since 1977.
Her son, Robert Ettinger, a World War II veteran and founder of the Cryonics Institute, is also in the Arctic limbo, along with his first and second wives.
The idea of life being revived after being frozen for a while has largely been relegated to science fiction in scientific circles.
Dennis Kowalski, the president of the Cryonics Institute in the US, told us Discover Magazine There are three challenges that future technological developments must overcome.
Repairing the damage caused by frostbite, curing the ailment that killed the patient, and reversing the aging process will all be necessary so that the person has a healthy body to enjoy his second chance at life.
Shannon Tessier, a cryobiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in the US, said the freezing process alone is a permanent death sentence.
“There is absolutely no current way, no proven scientific way, to actually freeze an entire human being to that temperature without completely destroying — and I mean destroying — the tissue,” Tessier said.