In a UK first, a terminally ill teenager has been granted her dying wish of being cryogenically frozen when she dies.
After begging her divorced parents to let her body be frozen, the adamant teen – who cannot be named due to legal reasons – later took her request to court because her estranged father refused to grant her final request, as he questioned the procedure’s validity.
It’s being reported that because of this, the young girl, only known as JS, wanted her mother to be the only person allowed to weigh in on her request.
But it was this honest letter to the high-court judge, which JS wrote from her death bed, that arguably became one of the biggest deciding factors.
“I have been asked to explain why I want this unusual thing done.”
“I am only 14 years old and I know I don’t want to die but I know I am going to die.”
“I think being cryo-preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up – even in hundreds of years’ time.”
“I don’t want to be buried underground.”
“I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future, they may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up.”
“I want to have this chance. This is my wish.”
The sensitive case reached court for the first time on September 26, and High Court judge, Mr Justice Peter Jackson, made the final call to let JS make her own decision just 10 days later.
JS died less than two weeks after that.
JS’ body is now being kept frozen in a tank at the Cryonics Institute in the U.S.
The young girl’s solicitor, Zoe Fleetwood, said that upon his ruling, she called Justice Jackson a “hero”.
She has become the first child in the UK to have her body cryogenically frozen. As there are no cryo-preserve facilities in the UK, JS’ body is now being preserved at the Cryonics Institute near Detroit, Michigan in the U.S.
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