A facility in regional New South Wales has become the first in the Southern Hemisphere to cryogenically freeze a human person. I’ll be honest, this isn’t the sort of news story I thought I’d be writing this week but here we go.
At the Holbrook facility of Southern Cryonics, a Sydney man became the first person to be made into a human ice block. Holbrook is home to just under 2000 (living, unfrozen) people.
Australia has finally frozen its first bloke. What a week for the country.
The man, who was in his 80s when he passed away earlier in May, is now being referred to by the company formed in February of 2023, as “patient one”.
What is cryonics?
Southern Cryonics defines the practice on its website as “the preservation of the human body at cryogenic temperatures (−196°C).”
This is done “in the expectation that future medical technology may be able to repair the accumulated damage of aging and disease at the molecular level, and restore the patient to health”.
The practice was first made famous by the persistent rumour that Walt Disney was frozen after his death.
To this day, many still believe he was frozen and kept on ice under one of his theme parks.
There is no concrete evidence to suggest this is true.
How much does it cost to be cryogenically frozen?
In the case of Southern Cryonics, the process costs the client $170,000 per the ABC.
Additional fees are then charged as the preservation process continues per news.com.au.
For comparison, you can buy an actual plot of land in the town of Holbrook for $139,000.
No offence (well, maybe a little) but what a dumb use of your money.
The grandkids must’ve been FUMING that their grandad fizzled away their inheritance on this.
Does cryogenically freezing someone work?
Professor Bruce Thompson from the Melbourne School of Health Science, hilariously described the process to the ABC as “Star Trek in play”.
“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 explained.
“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.”
In conclusion? Yeah, nah. Probably not aye.
Image credit choja via iStock.
