Cryonics UK's Blog
Reports from past trainings and events, and some thoughts and tips for future development.
Reports from past trainings and events, and some thoughts and tips for future development.
Photographer Murray Ballard had visited Cryonics UK a few times. He also visited cryonics storage facilities at Alcor and Cryonics Institute in the US, and Kriorus in Russia.
On Friday afternoon David and I visited Impressions Gallery in Bradford, to see Murray's first public exhibition.
Many people (myself included) got caught scanning the QR-codes placed below the large photographs. Some of the URLs led to voice recordings of the portrayed persons, adding another dimension to the visual experience.
Cryonics UK was pictured showing both our old premises in the South of England (not here in my photo) and the new one in Sheffield. You can see the CUK's ambulance, after it was repainted; and the blue horizontal thing is the Portable Ice Bath.
More on the Impressions Gallery website »
"Bob's dead; help!"
If you received such a call from Bob's wife, would you know what to do?
There's a lot to be done all at once when someone suffers a cardiac arrest; from first aid in almost any case, to "last aid" in the case of those who have made arrangements for their cryopreservation under such circumstances.
Even just knowing the right phonecalls to make is a starting point.
December's CUK training incorporated a session covering as many eventualities as possible, ensuring attendees knew not only what should happen in an ideal situation, but also what should happen when things are thrust upon them at a moment's notice, in a situation that's not ideal.
As usual there was also a more practical hands-on element to the training too, including much of Sunday afternoon being occupied with training in the use of CUK's air-transportable perfusion kit (the equipment with which a patient is perfused with a cryoprotectant solution, known by the creative and colourful name "CI VM-1", in order to allow the patient to be cooled to a very low temperature without allowing ice crystals to form in the patient's brain).
Not a lot of people know how to do that, but those who attend our trainings get a head start!
The meeting took place on Thursday, September 23, 2010 (12:00pm – 6:00pm), starting at a function room at the Sheffield Park Hotel, and progressing to our facility where the guests were shown the premises and ambulance.
The Cryonics UK exposition / European workshop was an opportunity to get to know some very noteworthy guests from America who wish to meet as many cryonicists (especially Europeans) as possible at this event.
Catherine Baldwin (General Manager, Suspended Animation, Inc.) and Saul Kent (CEO, Suspended Animation, Inc.; Director, Alcor; Co-Founder, Cryonics Society of New York; Co-Founder, Life Extension Foundation; Co-Founder and Director, 21st Century Medicine; Co-Founder and Director, BioMarker Pharmaceuticals; Co-Founder, Timeship Project) were in attendance.
The day was pleasant and successful.
A presentation was given on the topic of CUK, and also a presentation on the topic of EUCRIO. A video of CUK training was shown, tours were given of the CUK clinic, bulky equipment storage space, and ambulance. There was a CUK equipment show-and-tell.
Many small peripheral meetings were made; some purely social, and some quite productive.
We were joined by people from England, Scotland, Wales, France, Poland, Finland, and America.
Contrary to expectations and great turnout (over 25 people), this training was not led by Ben Best. This was our standard training with Cryonics Institute President Ben Best in attendance, occasionally pointing to differences between CI's protocol and our own. It was decided to implement some changes in our protocol, such as the transition from closed to open circuit at the patient's washout and perfusion.
As you can see in the photo on the left, the ambulance has been painted in new colours.
At the end of Sunday the whole cryonics emergency scenario was practiced near the ambulance. I captured the action with my small pocket Nikon Coolpix photo camera. The recording was subsequently used for the Cryonics UK European Exposition presentation which David gave in September to Saul Kent and Catherine Baldwin (+ about 20 guests). All the cryonics stabilisation practice was done mostly by the newer volunteers; while Ben Best, Alan Sinclair and David Styles were watching their performance.
Ben Best's report published in the Long Life magazine (September 2010) (a .pdf file) »The weekend kicked off with our AGM, at which our committee was re-elected. The only change to the Committee has been that Mark Willis has been elected Secretary, in place of Mark Walker.
A new Constitution was proposed, but to implement it at this meeting would give the membership insufficient notice and be unconstitutional, so notice will be given by our Secretary more than two weeks before the next meeting, such that it can be implemented at that time.
At the last meeting, we created a large to-do list. At this meeting, we addressed whether these things had been done. Most of them had been done. The only thing not addressed as yet has been the ambulance's cosmetic make-over, which has been delayed due to inclement weather, and the reluctance of vehicle painting companies to take on such a one-off fiddly job. We expect to have this done before the next meeting, however.
Training was conducted over the course of both Saturday and Sunday, and included training regarding medications, medications administration methods (injections, IV drips, F.A.S.T. intra-osseus infuser, CombiTube, etc) the portable ice bath, the ambulance, the perfusion circuit, and the dry ice shipper.
Social meals out were enjoyed after training both days; Saturday this was at La Scala, and Sunday this was at Piccolino. Both are Italian restaurants in Sheffield.
If you missed out on this weekend, we look forward to seeing you at the next! See top of this page for details.
This weekend we were inundated with media representatives. One two-person TV crew, one print journalist and accompanying photographer, and one private film-maker, all with us to see what we do and also to visit our shiny new headquarters.
A handful of our members, myself included, consented to appear on film and in photographs. Personally, I view press activity as important, even if we place ourselves somewhat at their mercy as a result. Fortunately, press has thus far been mostly favourable, and the only article that misrepresented us at least brought us interest from different journalists who will hopefully represent us more fairly.
Because of group size, training was now split in two most of the time, with the Facility Manager taking one group and myself taking another at any given time. This seemed to work very well, as it gave everyone much more chance to practice, and also means that people have two different teachers; some people find they learn better from one person's teaching style than another's.
Another change to training was an increased use of Bob, our life-sized (and weighted) human body dummy. This really helps make more clear what is going on with activities such as perfusion, wherein the patient has previously been represented only by an imaginary space caused by connecting the apparatus to itself to complete the circuit minus patient. This time, we placed a blood filter between Bob's legs (to represent the fact that it the ATP would be connected via cannulation tubes inserted into the patient's femoral arteries) and plumbed the circuit into that instead, such that the blood filter could represent the patient's place in the system.
Saturday's training included ambulance, ice-bath, thumper, Air-Transport Perfusion apparatus, with most segments repeated for the benefit of a) cameras b) late arrivals c) better yet comprehension.
Sunday's training included administration of medicines appropriate to cryopreservation, followed by refreshers on the work from the previous day. We were also pleased to be joined on Sunday by Shannon Vyff, formerly a volunteer Readiness Coordinator for Alcor in the US, before moving to the UK.
Sunday afternoon also held a committee meeting, with other members sitting in as is customary. Everyone's input is important. We discussed legal and financial matters, more on the ongoing improvements to the ambulance, our happy situation of now having VM-1 (Vitrification Mixture One) supplied by CI, administrative issues, and PR issues.
Saturday night's social evening consisted of dinner in local Italian restaurant "La Scala".
If you didn't make it to this meeting, you missed out, but we look forward to seeing you at the next, in March! See the top of this page for details.
Saturday kicked off with a tour of our new HQ in Sheffield (after many years of it being located at the home of our President, Alan Sinclair).
We now have a large subterranean room that can be used as anything from a training room to an operating room, and when we're not using it it'll be an acupuncture clinic. Aside from that, our new HQ is a delightful environment in which to conduct the rest of our business, ranging from committee meetings, to discussions pertaining to the theory of cryonics, to social chats.
That said, Cryonics UK is now focussed far more intently on the practical side of cryonics. At this most recent meeting, everyone enjoyed three hands-on practical sessions, relating to three of our four main training modules.
The first, on Saturday afternoon (the morning having been dedicated to some necessary discussion elements), was our new area of training, the ambulance. Rather than have too few people know how to operate everything in the ambulance, as had previously been the case, Alan Sinclair, our President, personally headed a session to ensure that all team members in attendance understood all main elements of the use of the ambulance and its intrinsic technologies. This will now be included as a regular training module, as the ambulance is an important part of our resource toolbox.
Sunday morning was devoted to training in / practice of the use of the Air Transport Perfusion (ATP) kit. This is the equipment by which the patient's blood is replaced first with washout fluids and later, with some modifications to the kit, with a perfusate intended to minimise tissue damage.
Sunday afternoon was spent practicing the use of the portable ice-bath (PIB) and the oxygen-powered cardio-pulmonary support (CPS) equipment, also known as the Thumper.
The only practical training module not covered in this weekend was medications, and this was ommitted at this meeting simply because the relevant equipment (and indeed everything else) had only just been moved up to Sheffield from our former HQ down near Brighton, and would take some more hours than we had to prepare a sufficient number of dummy kits for training purposes.
At the next meeting, in December, we will include all four main practical training modules (Ambulance, Meds, PIB, ATP).
Covered in discussion elements at this meeting were steps to maximise our financial sustainability, administrative elements, a call for a new constitution, a discussion of the pros and cons of the potential use of various perfusates by Cryonics UK (glycerol, M-22, VM-1), and a collaboration towards producing improved, more user-friendly, instruction manuals for team members.
And most of us also enjoyed a very pleasant meal in Piccolo's Italian restaurant. Well worth a visit if you're passing through Sheffield.
If you didn't make this meeting, we look forward to seeing you at the next, in December!
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