When Walt Disney died, a rumor started. They said that he had been frozen to revive in the future. But if the rumor was pure fantasy, certain real facts gave it relief. The story of the man who has been cryogenized for 57 years to date is one of them.
In 1967, a man named James Bedford, a professor of psychology, died from kidney cancer. Fascinated with new theories of cryogenics, he volunteered. The first organization in the world dedicated to cryopreservation was the Life Extension Foundation (LES). He wanted to promote his activities and offered to freeze a volunteer for free.

waiting for life
There were several, but the relatives opposed it. Instead, Bedford lived in a nursing home and no one visited him. The first steps of the procedure were carried out in the same asylum where he had breathed his last. The time between death and freezing was minimal. The body was placed in a large container with dry ice. He was also connected to an artificial respiration machine.
“Immediately, he injected heparin to prevent blood clotting. Artificial respiration and external massage were applied to keep oxygenated blood circulating,” they explained. They hoped to preserve body and brain cells.
With the corpse now completely frozen, it was later placed in a tank with liquid nitrogen. All that was left was to wait decades or centuries for technology to advance to revive it. As time went by, Bedford began to have company. Eight other volunteers repeated the process. But a vacuum pump failure thawed all the new bodies. Bedford's frozen corpse was saved.

Irreversible damage
The last examination carried out on the body was in 1991. It was transferred from an original cryocapsule to a more modern one without suffering damage. The man who has been cryogenized for 57 years now has more company. Another 147 “patients” are waiting (or not) for a miracle. But the truth is that there is no future for Bedford. The precarious process to which his body was subjected damaged his brain forever.
Even so, it is preserved intact, as a symbol. Because of his status as a pioneer of cryogenization, he is remembered every January 12. The Alcor Life Extension Foundation celebrates “James Bedford Day”.