Imagine - Cracking your head, being put on ice and awakened 32 years later.
Are we prepared for the cryogenic reality of being completely displaced in time?
Freeze
Ah, yes, um...Thank you for coming. Though I'm sure you know who I am, allow me to introduce myself.
Hello. My name is Benjamin Ross and I died on December 10, 2032 AD. On February 6, 2064 I was born again: followed by a six-month incubation including cerebral and spinal regeneration.
If you ask me my age my first response is that I am 32, I am married and father of a beautiful baby named Joshua. However, I am faced with a different reality than what my mind and memories tell me.
My former wife is now 67. My son is 32- three months younger than myself.
On the day that I died I remember how happy I was to be a father. I remember the color of his eyes, his smile... cheeks... I even remember the smell of his nursery… How my wife would soon be coming home after a brisk walk in the early winter snow. I remember it as if it were yesterday day, at one point; I thought it was only yesterday.
I believe Joshua and I were having a daddy to baby talk when I heard the gate buzzer, signaling the return of my wife who could not get in. Apparently the cold weather somehow froze the lock. I remember not wanting to leave Joshua long and running down the stairs. And… As I exited my home, cold air hit my skin and made me all too aware of the world around me; the snow, the wind, and the ice beneath my feet.
Sliding off the first step all that I saw was the sky and two hands reaching for the nearest cloud. In slow motion, silence, was followed by a loud crack to back of my head. The loud crack was soon overtaken by what sounded like the sirens of a nuclear assault. After that there was nothing... nothing at all.
The blow to my neck, occiput, base of skull, left my body in immediate paralysis. Eventually this paralysis would infringe on my respiration and heart rate. Eventually would happen in approximately two minutes.
My cerebellum and medulla cortex also suffered from the severe contusion all but destroying my motor skills. The damage would also threaten my cerebrum with swelling and clot formation, causing damage to most thought processes of the brain.
If I were to have had any luck in this at all, it would be that my wife could signal emergency service from outside the gate. And of course the cold... My partially dressed body lay in a pool of rapidly cooling blood with ice and snow. Everything bad was still happening, but more slowly than otherwise.
At the hospital my condition was likely to worsen. If I was going to survive at all, my wife was told, I would be no more than an organic substance maintained by life support. What my wife didn't know was that I was still in a rapidly cooling pool. I was already being prepared for what was to be my cocoon for 32 years. I was already being prepared for the no choice decision my wife was about to make in the next twenty minutes.
My wife was told that there was every reason to believe I was still alive inside my brain. She was told that a hostile environment from which modern medicine could offer no real protection surrounded my brain. She was told that modern medicine was making great strides in Delayed Frozen Regeneration and that given another couple of years I may very well have a full recovery if I were put on immediately. She was told this during Chanukah. She was told these harsh realities 15 days from our first Christmas as a family. She was told this as my mother in law held Joshua in a room only ten feet away.
Given the circumstances the decision to freeze me in a suspended coma state was the best of several horrifying choices. There would be hope. There would be no funeral during our child's first holiday season.
There would also be no closer... an empty bed, a child without a father. But as I said, there would be hope.
I'm sure my wife would say much more about that day. After all, she lived through it not I.
From what I know she would tell you how a decision, so difficult for her, was so easy for the doctors and scientist involved. No, not those who spoke with her directly, but those who thought she couldn't see them from the corner of her eye or eavesdrop through the echo of hospital corridors. I guess my condition was somewhat ideal for the new procedure they had in mind.
She would also tell you how she turned to ice as I did on that same day.
She would tell you that as ten years disappeared with her waiting for one more hypothesis on re-animation and one more trial that she began to think she was frozen.
I wonder if Dante could imagine such punishment? I wonder what would be the crime?
On Feb. 6 2064 AD I was conscious for the first time in 32 years. And, as you may imagine, I had one hell of a headache. I cried like a baby.
A nurse was holding my hand and I guess more than a few physicians and nurses entered the room. I could understand most every word they said. I wanted to respond but not a single voluntary muscle in my body was doing what I told it. So, naturally, I cried some more.
Within a few hours my wife and son entered the room against doctor’s orders. Before me stood a beautiful woman of 67 and a handsome young man of 32. Not knowing if I was in heaven or hell I cried out incomprehensible words and flung out my arms in an honest attempt to return the embrace they were giving me.
How do I describe my incredible feelings about all of this? To say that I am the luckiest man alive is an understatement. How do I stand before all of you today and critique my experience?
I am not only the first to recover from a cryogenic state, but also the first person to demonstrate complete nerve regeneration through an incubation state. I was like a child in the womb. I have been born again.
How could any of you understand what it is I say?
Just yesterday, I watched video my son taking his first steps 32 years ago, with my son who aged 32 years in a what feels like a day. Later that day I sat in a holographic auditorium and watched my child perform during a music recital. Every single moment that my wife and child felt had any significance has been carefully preserved on digital imagery... just in case... just in case.
However, you know the truth from what you see before you today. You know that I have been mildly sedated. And that while I am grateful for all you've done. You can't stop that voice. The voice that tells me this is so horribly wrong.
Here I am sitting in a cyberspace world of holograms dating back to Dec. 25 2032. A world that seems so painfully real and passing my hand through my past that was never my present.
I am 32. My son is 32. For the last 3 months he has had to watch his father go from saying ga-ga gooh-gooh, to a word that finally has more than one syllable.
In my mind I have been married for five years. My wife has now been married 7 years to another man. . I am still 32. I want to go to my home in Hartford Connecticut. My home was sold 5 years after my accident. Connecticut, I am told, no longer exists as a state. In fact there are no states at all and we are all healing from a worldwide revolution.
I bless you for this chance to see what I have seen, but all that I know of the past is that I wasn't there. I have no place with my wife. All I have is a debt that can never be paid.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is not amnesia. I believe alien abduction is somehow closer to the truth. I am not of this time, nor was I meant to be and nor will the others.
Saving me... freezing me… did nothing for the quality of life my family has endured. It merely proved that once again humans have acquired a power never meant for anything less than the Gods. Let the sun have fusion, let space have eternity, let me have my life.
I had a beautiful life. I exchanged vows with an angel and had a month to see heaven lie within the confines of a cradle.
I ask you to finish your tests. I ask you to give me back my life.
My life ended Dec. 10, 2032.
Ah, yes, um...Thank you for coming. Though I'm sure you know who I am, allow me to introduce myself.
Hello. My name is Benjamin Ross and I died on December 10, 2032 AD. On February 6, 2064 I was born again: followed by a six-month incubation including cerebral and spinal regeneration.
If you ask me my age my first response is that I am 32, I am married and father of a beautiful baby named Joshua. However, I am faced with a different reality than what my mind and memories tell me.
My former wife is now 67. My son is 32- three months younger than myself.
On the day that I died I remember how happy I was to be a father. I remember the color of his eyes, his smile... cheeks... I even remember the smell of his nursery… How my wife would soon be coming home after a brisk walk in the early winter snow. I remember it as if it were yesterday day, at one point; I thought it was only yesterday.
I believe Joshua and I were having a daddy to baby talk when I heard the gate buzzer, signaling the return of my wife who could not get in. Apparently the cold weather somehow froze the lock. I remember not wanting to leave Joshua long and running down the stairs. And… As I exited my home, cold air hit my skin and made me all too aware of the world around me; the snow, the wind, and the ice beneath my feet.
Sliding off the first step all that I saw was the sky and two hands reaching for the nearest cloud. In slow motion, silence, was followed by a loud crack to back of my head. The loud crack was soon overtaken by what sounded like the sirens of a nuclear assault. After that there was nothing... nothing at all.
The blow to my neck, occiput, base of skull, left my body in immediate paralysis. Eventually this paralysis would infringe on my respiration and heart rate. Eventually would happen in approximately two minutes.
My cerebellum and medulla cortex also suffered from the severe contusion all but destroying my motor skills. The damage would also threaten my cerebrum with swelling and clot formation, causing damage to most thought processes of the brain.
If I were to have had any luck in this at all, it would be that my wife could signal emergency service from outside the gate. And of course the cold... My partially dressed body lay in a pool of rapidly cooling blood with ice and snow. Everything bad was still happening, but more slowly than otherwise.
At the hospital my condition was likely to worsen. If I was going to survive at all, my wife was told, I would be no more than an organic substance maintained by life support. What my wife didn't know was that I was still in a rapidly cooling pool. I was already being prepared for what was to be my cocoon for 32 years. I was already being prepared for the no choice decision my wife was about to make in the next twenty minutes.
My wife was told that there was every reason to believe I was still alive inside my brain. She was told that a hostile environment from which modern medicine could offer no real protection surrounded my brain. She was told that modern medicine was making great strides in Delayed Frozen Regeneration and that given another couple of years I may very well have a full recovery if I were put on immediately. She was told this during Chanukah. She was told these harsh realities 15 days from our first Christmas as a family. She was told this as my mother in law held Joshua in a room only ten feet away.
Given the circumstances the decision to freeze me in a suspended coma state was the best of several horrifying choices. There would be hope. There would be no funeral during our child's first holiday season.
There would also be no closer... an empty bed, a child without a father. But as I said, there would be hope.
I'm sure my wife would say much more about that day. After all, she lived through it not I.
From what I know she would tell you how a decision, so difficult for her, was so easy for the doctors and scientist involved. No, not those who spoke with her directly, but those who thought she couldn't see them from the corner of her eye or eavesdrop through the echo of hospital corridors. I guess my condition was somewhat ideal for the new procedure they had in mind.
She would also tell you how she turned to ice as I did on that same day.
She would tell you that as ten years disappeared with her waiting for one more hypothesis on re-animation and one more trial that she began to think she was frozen.
I wonder if Dante could imagine such punishment? I wonder what would be the crime?
On Feb. 6 2064 AD I was conscious for the first time in 32 years. And, as you may imagine, I had one hell of a headache. I cried like a baby.
A nurse was holding my hand and I guess more than a few physicians and nurses entered the room. I could understand most every word they said. I wanted to respond but not a single voluntary muscle in my body was doing what I told it. So, naturally, I cried some more.
Within a few hours my wife and son entered the room against doctor’s orders. Before me stood a beautiful woman of 67 and a handsome young man of 32. Not knowing if I was in heaven or hell I cried out incomprehensible words and flung out my arms in an honest attempt to return the embrace they were giving me.
How do I describe my incredible feelings about all of this? To say that I am the luckiest man alive is an understatement. How do I stand before all of you today and critique my experience?
I am not only the first to recover from a cryogenic state, but also the first person to demonstrate complete nerve regeneration through an incubation state. I was like a child in the womb. I have been born again.
How could any of you understand what it is I say?
Just yesterday, I watched video my son taking his first steps 32 years ago, with my son who aged 32 years in a what feels like a day. Later that day I sat in a holographic auditorium and watched my child perform during a music recital. Every single moment that my wife and child felt had any significance has been carefully preserved on digital imagery... just in case... just in case.
However, you know the truth from what you see before you today. You know that I have been mildly sedated. And that while I am grateful for all you've done. You can't stop that voice. The voice that tells me this is so horribly wrong.
Here I am sitting in a cyberspace world of holograms dating back to Dec. 25 2032. A world that seems so painfully real and passing my hand through my past that was never my present.
I am 32. My son is 32. For the last 3 months he has had to watch his father go from saying ga-ga gooh-gooh, to a word that finally has more than one syllable.
In my mind I have been married for five years. My wife has now been married 7 years to another man. . I am still 32. I want to go to my home in Hartford Connecticut. My home was sold 5 years after my accident. Connecticut, I am told, no longer exists as a state. In fact there are no states at all and we are all healing from a worldwide revolution.
I bless you for this chance to see what I have seen, but all that I know of the past is that I wasn't there. I have no place with my wife. All I have is a debt that can never be paid.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is not amnesia. I believe alien abduction is somehow closer to the truth. I am not of this time, nor was I meant to be and nor will the others.
Saving me... freezing me… did nothing for the quality of life my family has endured. It merely proved that once again humans have acquired a power never meant for anything less than the Gods. Let the sun have fusion, let space have eternity, let me have my life.
I had a beautiful life. I exchanged vows with an angel and had a month to see heaven lie within the confines of a cradle.
I ask you to finish your tests. I ask you to give me back my life.
My life ended Dec. 10, 2032.