Dying woman, Kim Suozzi, asks for public’s help to be cryogenically frozen

What would you do to save your own life? One young American woman is hoping that science of the future may one day save hers. Watch the above YouTube video where she includes a plea for help.

Back in March of 2011, 23-year-old Kim Suozzi was told she had just a few months to live. The Kirksville, Missouri resident's brain cancer — a particularly aggressive form called glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) —was growing and would soon kill her, reports the CBC. In the hopes of making the very best of what little time she had left, Suozzi turned to the online question-and-answer forum Reddit Answers for advice on what to do.

There were more than 4000 replies: try LSD, go skydiving, and eat amazing food were all suggestions that ranked high. Yet the piece of advice that Suozzi decided she would follow had nothing to do with last minute thrills or indulgences. Her last wish was to be cryogenically preserved in the hopes of one day being brought back to life.

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"I'm aware of the problems with the current techniques," she says in her YouTube plea for support. "I'm aware that there's damage done with the vitrification process." Yet she remained hopeful that in "the off chance that [future technology] solves these problems, I will be able to be revived some day."

Suozzi has been working to raise the $35,000 it will cost to be preserved at Cryonics Institute in Michigan, one of only a handful of preservation centres in the world. She's put out a call on Reddit for donations, as well as, a group that promotes and raises funds for cryopreservation called the Society for Venturism. According to a blog post, $27,000 had been raised by August 31.

"It's a better shot at living again than if I were decomposing somewhere or cooked into ash," says Suozzi on her Reddit plea for assistance. "This is the last thing I can possibly do to fight for another chance, and if does happen to work, it will be incredible. Live again or die trying."

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The story has put the rare and often misunderstood practice of cryogenic preservation back in the spotlight. And Suozzi is not the only hopeful one. She's part of a small but devoted group that believes there is at least the possibility that technology will one day exist to reanimate a frozen body.

"Until the 2000s, cryonics just didn't seem viable — it seemed like an experimental process," says Allan Randall.

The Torontonian is the secretary and co-director of the Cryonics Society of Canada. He explains that back in the '60s when the first person was preserved, unsophisticated freezing processes meant huge amounts of cell damage would occur as the body and brain cooled.

"Vitrification changed that," says Randall.

The novel process he refers to was introduced in the early 2000s, and involves adding chemicals to the brain tissue so that the organ can be cooled to a glass-like consistency without completely destroying the cellular structure. Unfortunately, the process has yet to be perfected, and so freezing still results in numerous hairline fractures throughout the brain.

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Randall estimates that there are probably around a thousand people who have ever been cryonically frozen, and maybe a few dozen more are added each year. But he says the recent advances in cryonics technology are drawing new interest — most frequently from people in the technology and medical fields.

"People in this field [cryonic preservation] have always been very upfront and published about the shortcomings and the amount of damage caused," says Randall. "It would take a huge advancement in future technology to bring you back, but what does it matter if you have thousands of years?"

Do you think that cryopreservation is worth attempting? Is it something you would ever consider?