Report on CUK training

I had written this in advance:

Details for the next meeting,
Saturday the 25th and Sunday the 26th of September 2010


Times will be: 11:00 - 17:00 Saturday, 10:00 - 16:00 Sunday.

Attendance is free of charge.

The meeting will be hosted at our HQ, whose address is:
7 Greenfield Drive
Greenhill
Sheffield
South Yorkshire
S8 7SL

Like last meeting, our focus will primarily be on hands-on training, mostly down in the clinic room but some out in the ambulance as well. Training modules that will be covered in addition to the above will include:

Medical Distribution System (MDS)
Portable Ice Bath (PIB), squid, and Cardiopulmonary Support (CPS)
Air Transport Perfusion (ATP)
Ambulance use and functions
Dry Ice Shipper
We will also be introducing one new training segment not listed above.

It's especially important that we all keep up to date with this training, as we are a mutual assistance volunteer standby team. We need as many members as possible to be sufficiently skilled in doing these things that they can join the team.

There will be some discussion elements also to do with present and future progress with the organisation, though at this early time a specific agenda regarding the discussion aspect of the weekend is yet to be set.

If you would kindly let me know if you'd like to attend, that would help me greatly in terms of logistics! My email address is ds@cryonics-uk.com - Many thanks.

Warm regards,

Eternally,

David Styles (Organiser)
+44 7706 149 771

PS, here are some directions and hotel suggestions from Tim, our host for the weekend:
Sheffield Park Hotel, 2 mins away, www.pedersenhotels.com
Beauchief Abbey House, 5 mins away, www.beauchiefabbeyhouse.co.uk
Beauchief Hotel, 5 mins away, www.beauchief-hotel.com
Travelodge Richmond, 10 mins away, www.travelodge.co.uk
City centre, 15 mins away:
Travelodge Central, www.travelodge.co.uk
Premier Inn, www.premierinn.com
Ibis Hotel, www.accorhotels.com
And many more, just google!

Time and mileage saving tip:
If traveling from the South up the M1, exit at J29 and head for Chesterfield. When you reach Chesterfield take the A61 to Sheffield. When you hit the Sheffield ring road, you will be at a roundabout with a cricket club on your left and an Audi dealership on your right. Take a left at the roundabout, then first right (Greenhill Avenue), first left (Greenfield Road) and first left again (Greenfield Drive). It's the first house on the left with tall boxy hedges.
If coming up the A1 or down the M1, exit at J33 and take the A630 towards the city centre. Leave the A630 for the A6102 ring road and head towards Chesterfield. Look out for the Audi dealership on your left, go straight over at that roundabout, then first right (Greenhill Avenue), first left (Greenfield Road) and first left again (Greenfield Drive). It's the first house on the left with tall boxy hedges.

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The weekend was useful and productive, and we finished up once again with doing several run-through scenarios with the team / trainees.

The process is getting pretty tight now, with shorter time taken to do things, and in the final one no errors. I think this is a good way to train.

Introduction to EUCRIO on YouTube

Cryonics UK Exposition with Saul Kent and Catherine Baldwin

I had posted this, in advance:

Cryonics UK European Exposition
with Saul Kent + Catherine Baldwin
Thursday, September 23, 2010 • 12:00pm - 6:00pm, Sheffield • function room at the Sheffield Park Hotel

Cryonics UK exposition / European workshop with 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) will be in attendance, and are looking forward to meeting as many European cryonicists as possible while here.

On this day, we will mostly not be at our usual location, our HQ, but nearby in a hired function room at the Sheffield Park Hotel, a pleasant four star venue around the corner from our HQ. The day will however also include a brief tour of our HQ.

The purpose of the event is severalfold; to allow European cryonicists to meet and ask questions of Saul and Catherine, and also to allow Saul and Catherine to get to know a little better what we do over here and how we do it.

To this end, there will be open discussion time, some short structured presentations (Cryonics UK training, Cryonics in Europe, etc), a tour of our clinic and ambulance, and some social element too.

Attendance is free of charge, as the costs of the event (venue and catering) will be paid by kind sponsorship from Suspended Animation Inc.

If you would kindly let me know if you'd like to attend, that would help me greatly in terms of logistics! My email address is ds@cryonics-uk.com – Many thanks.

Warm regards,

Eternally,

David Styles (Organiser)
+44 7706 149 771

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The day was pleasant and successful.

I gave a presentation on the topic of CUK, and 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. Apologies if I missed any countries out; I am writing this somewhat after the fact, and will simply change the date to cause this post to appear in the correct part of the blog.

On a note of light entertainment, a chef obsessed with the hope of discovering that cryonics is a financial scam hired a young man to come and spy on us. The fellow in question dutifully reported that I seem to be a nice fellow, and am not a slick salesman at all, and that there were no attempts whatsoever to sell anything to him.

Of course, this didn't deter the obsessed chef, but I guess his epistemology is much like that of "Creationist Science", in which evidence is only worth considering when it fits the result you hope to find. And if there is no evidence, then make imaginative guesses and then hold them as beliefs.

EUCRIO presentation at Cryonics Institute AGM.

I made a presentation regarding EUCRIO at this year's AGM of the Cryonics Institute.

My presentation was well-received, and I received many well-wishes, and enquiries regarding EUCRIO's services.

I also made some useful new connections, enjoyed spending some time with some old friends, and benefited from other people's presentations at the AGM.

Of particular interest to me was the research update from Aschwin and Chana de Wolf, of Advanced Neural Biosciences Inc, regarding the effects of various perfusates on warm and cold ischemia (they have been rat brain perfusion studies).

CI's 100th Patient

CI’s 100th patient was brought to the facility by his son.

I accompanied CI President Ben Best in preparing the cooling equipment, that is to say allowing liquid nitrogen access to the enclosed space where liquid nitrogen is sprayed over the patient (who is protected by a thermally insulated sleeping bag). During the preparation stage, liquid nitrogen is sprayed through the space the patient will soon be occupying. The temperature is carefully continuously monitored throughout this process, and also throughout the later cool-down of the patient.

The son brought the patient in; the patient had been cooled already to below -83˚C, and was now lying in a body bag in a Ziegler container, the space between the two being filled with many blocks of dry ice. The son had stopped on the way up to pick up more, to guard against the sublimation of dry ice compromising his father’s safety. The Ziegler container itself was insulated by thick foam blocks that had been fastened around it.

Upon arrival, we removed the outer casing of foam and the lid of the Ziegler container, and took out as much of the dry ice as possible without moving the patient. We then transferred the container to a fork lift truck, and from the fork lift truck to the ground.

A back-board with an insulated sleeping bag on it was produced, and we set about the task of transferring the patient from the container into the sleeping bag. To do this, we first took out as much of the remaining dry ice as possible (although we had removed all the blocks already, there were very many small pieces between the patient’s body and the bottom edges of the Ziegler container), and then adjusted his position along the horizontal plane, so as to ensure he was in no manner attached to the base of the container, before lifting him out, which was accomplished by inclining the container somewhat and transferring him manually to the sleeping bag. We then zipped the sleeping bag up, and placed some dry ice around the patient’s head while Andy (CI Facility Manager Andy Zawacki) ran a cord in a criss-cross fashion around the sleeping bag and back-board, once they had been placed on a gurney.

We then wheeled the patient around to the cooling apparatus, from which position he was lifted by winch, and then lowered into place, for the lengthy process that would be his cool-down from dry ice temperatures, to liquid nitrogen temperatures, before being placed in an LN2 cryostat.

Congratulations to Marta Sandberg

CI Director Marta Sandberg was re-elected on this day, winning first place in the election with a strong majority of votes.

My hearty congratulations to her. A good woman doing a good job.