1. We re-evaluated most aspects of standby-transport work, gathering information and knowledge from MDs, paramedics, nurses, surgeons, two professional perfusionists, researchers in resuscitation medicine and cryobiology, and experienced participants in cryonics cases. Our current knowledge is derived equally from conventional medicine and prior art in cryonics. We own copies of most of the transport manuals ever written, including the first manual authored by Fred and Linda Chamberlain shortly after they founded Alcor in 1972. Our goal is to innovate, but we also wish to avoid institutional amnesia and the resulting tendency to waste time reinventing the wheel.
2. We designed new equipment that can be deployed quickly and is fail-safe, convenient, professional in appearance, functional, and effective. This redesign
process is continuing.
3. The immense load of equipment that had been transported from California to Florida was inventoried. Most of it had never been unpacked and examined. We evaluated everything, disposed of unusable or outdated items, cleaned the items that we kept, and organized them.
4. Local paramedics, nurses, and other personnel were recruited to assist us in future cases. In addition we established contractual arrangements with transport team members in Arizona and California, and we maintain a close association with two laboratories,
Critical Care Research and
21st Century Medicine, which provide expert assistance in issues relating to resuscitation medicine and cryobiology, respectively. We contracted with an MD who is a national authority in critical care medicine and will be available as an advisor in future cases, and we established a close relationship with a Florida-based cardiovascular surgeon. We continue to add expertise from outside consultants.
5. We retained an answering service that specializes in medical applications to receive and forward emergency calls via our 800 number.
6. Our medical consultants received training in the use of our standby equipment, and our employees received training in infection control, administering medications, and airway management. This process of education will continue.
7. We re-examined all the legal aspects and implications of cryonics, with special relevance to Florida statutes. We received advice from six separate attorneys on topics ranging from city zoning to the legal restrictions on design of a mortuary pickup vehicle. One of our attorneys is also a licensed funeral director.
8. We maintained a close relationship with a cooperative Florida mortician who has participated in three local cases.
9. A completely new contract was negotiated with the
Cryonics Institute (CI), in the expectation that CI members may contract for our standby services, since CI does not offer standby capability itself.
10. We began negotiations with the
Alcor Life Extension Foundation in the hope of receiving approval to serve as a subcontractor for some of their cases, especially on the East Coast. By mid-2006 a verbal agreement had been made and a written contract was under consideration.
11. We designed and fabricated new equipment including two variants of ice baths, a new air-transportable perfusion circuit with hard-shell reservoir, an alarm system for the perfusion circuit, a completely new medications container system, and an ice water recirculation unit with its own self-contained power supply.
12. In January 2006 we purchased a high-roofed van for local transport work and commissioned a second, larger vehicle derived from an airport shuttle-bus. During 2006, we worked to convert these vehicles for our purposes.
13. We began work on a transportable liquid ventilation system, based on research at the Critical Care Research laboratory in Southern California.
14. We started equipping an operating room and made preliminary drawings for a revised cold surgery enclosure and computer-controlled rapid cooling unit.
15. Laboratory equipment was obtained and installed to enable storage and mixing of components for organ preservation solution and vitrification solution.
16. We hired new employees including a professional perfusionist, a designer-fabricator with extensive prior experience in biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and an industrial designer who also has applicable experience in veterinary surgery. A list of our current employees is available
here.
