Cryogenically frozen teen was given 'false hope', says distraught father
THE HEARTBROKEN father of a cryogenically frozen British teenager yesterday accused a US firm of selling his dying daughter “false hope”.
The devastated father accused the US firm of selling his daughter false hope
His legal bid to stop the terminally ill 14-year-old – known only as JS – being deep frozen was made public last week after her death.
The schoolgirl wanted to be stored at the Cryonics Institute at Detroit in the US, hoping she would have a second chance to live again in the future.
Just before she died of a rare cancer, High Court judge Mr Justice Jackson went to tell her he had decided to grant her wish.
The process was carried out on October 17 with her maternal grandparents paying the £37,000 costs.
But her father, estranged from his family after his divorce, criticised the cryogenic industry. He said: “I believe they are selling false hope to those who are frightened of dying, taking advantage of vulnerable people.
The teen hopes that one day she will be revived and her cancer can be cured
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I believe they are selling false hope
“When I asked if there was even a one in a million chance of my daughter being brought back to life, they could not say there was.”
The father, in his 40s, who cannot be named, has lymphoma cancer and was treated in the same London hospital as his daughter but never knew it. He said he offered his approval for her wishes for the chance to see her but was refused.
Struggling with his daughter’s decision, he spoke to the Institute, which he said could not explain how the process worked “in any logical way”. Dennis Kowalski, Cryonics Institute president, denied it profited from people’s fears, stressing it was “a non-profit organisation” that gave “no guarantees” that the process would work.
The teen's maternal grandparents paid the £37,000 costs