This scientist was frozen at his own request after his death and is waiting for the day he will wake up.
Let’s take a closer look at this story.
James Hiram Bedford is a psychology professor born in 1893.
Bedford had a successful career in academia throughout his life, but it wasn’t his job or his academic achievements that put him in the history books. After his death in 1967, he became famous as the first person to undergo cryogenic freezing.
In this way, Bedford became the first person to have hope of being brought back to life one day in the future. This scientist cryopreservation was performed by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in 1967.
Bedford, who was known to have died of cancer at the time, was subjected to this procedure immediately after his death. His body was cooled to approximately -196 degrees using liquid nitrogen and has been maintained at that temperature ever since.
In fact, although the cryogenic freezing process seems exciting, it is still a controversial issue.
Because today, it has not been definitively proven that this technology can one day bring frozen bodies back to life. In addition, at that time, cryogenic technology was still very new, but there was an optimistic atmosphere about it.
Bedford believed in this promising technology while he was fighting cancer, hoping to be revived after his death. The biggest factor that influenced his decision was his belief that science could one day cure cancer and revive dead bodies.
In other words, he managed to make history by participating in this process voluntarily. In fact, the freezing of James Bedford went beyond just a scientific experiment and went down in history as one of the most radical steps in humanity’s struggle with death.
Bedford’s body is still preserved in a cryogenic tank, more than 50 years since it was frozen. If one day science advances enough to actually bring frozen bodies back to life, Bedford will be the first test subject of this process.
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