Problems in the Williams Suspension

TWrelated (Login TWrelated)
Registered User
Posted Nov 14, 2009 11:01 AM

Maybe you can clear up some of the other troubling events surrounding TW:

A crowd of hangers-on taking pictures of themselves with his body;

the childish case notes and seemingly disastrous suspension;

the treatment of his head during transfer from the Cyrostar to the final container;

the tuna cans and ballpeen hammers...

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COMMENT:

I was not present for any of it, so cannot comment first-hand, as I can for my own experience with Johnson on the West Coast.

I've been TOLD that the story of the damage to Williams is not true, and can obviously be checked-- so one way or another, somebody's story is going to be corroborated by physical evidence. Sort of like our notes and photos of the day Johnson visited us, refute Johnson's allegation that we don't bother to keep records.

I can comment somewhat on the copy of the part of the Williams suspension record that Johnson reproduces. The basic facts are there, but the grammar and spelling are "childish" because it was taken by a woman whose first language is Japanese, not English, as Johnson notes. But so what; enough facts are recorded that Johnson decides he can tell you just what happened, even though HE wasn't there. Either the notes are bad notes, or else they're a good enough record to support Johnson's interpretaton for the reader; you can't have this both ways. This is a little philosophical quandry Johnson doesn't address. (BTW, there are other notes-- the bulk of them-- taken by native English speakers. No doubt Johnson has them also, since they weren't separated from what he reprinted, but we never see them. Again Alcor is made to look as bad as possible).

On page 197 Johnson takes it upon himself to opine (on the basis of these same notes) that "the horror show had all been for naught" and Williams' cryopreservation had been "a failure before he left the operating table" because there was a great deal of blood left in his head, at this point. This, because of a notation made about this time that there was a great deal of "arterial leakage" and "blood(y) fluid from the left pupil."

But any blood noted here is during the initial washout stage, done 2 hours before cryoprotection, as the time shows plainly. Any reader can verify that this particular note is at 21:24 hours, but the notes in the book also show that AFTER the cryoprotection is finished, 2 hours later, the target cryoprotectant concentration of 48-50% has been reached (time 23:13), the "PO [sic, should be 'pial'] brain surface is free of blood" and the brain "is now plain white" (time 23:27), indicating absense of blood. When Williams' head left the table, the procedure was far from completed, and cryoprotection with further blood washout, had not been done yet(!) Johnson never discusses this note, although he discusses surgical problems all around the later cryoprotection phase. He simply ignores evidence he doesn't want to discuss. This allows him to claim that everything failed some hours before, "even by Alcor's standards."

As though Johnson really knew anything about Alcor's standards or cryonics standards. As we see, he does not, proven even by the limited evidence he himself presents if I walk you through it. But that's the impression he leaves the unsuspecting lay reader with: that he knows what he's talking about. You have to read something like Cold Filter here, to get even a smidge of the truth.

Steve Harris