That Guy: Chilly relations with the missus just tip of iceberg

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Opinion

Cryogenics, or the ability to freeze somebody after death to bring them back to life many years later, seems like a sci-fi fantasy for most of us.

However, contrary to popular belief the technology is available to cryogenically freeze a human and bring them back many hundreds of years in the future - it's the execution of the process that scientists are struggling to perfect.

For one American man, this has become a reality and a living nightmare, rolled into one.

Bryan Riley suffered from a rare form of cancer. The prognosis was not good so, rather than choosing to fight it using conventional medicine, he chose to be a guinea pig and go into a state of cryogenic suspension while still relatively young and healthy.

The thinking was he could be revived many hundreds of years in the future, when there was perhaps a cure for his cancer.

Bryan spent many months getting his finances in order; he said farewell to his wife and family then, just six weeks ago, handed himself over to the San Diego-based Cryotech Corporation, which proceeded to freeze him via a complicated, high-tech process.

Stage one went to plan. Bryan slipped into a coma and died under controlled conditions. But it wasn't long before the technicians detected a problem. After an investigation it became apparent that rather than setting the defrost timer to 500 years as planned, a technician accidently set it to just five days.

Bryan was indeed revived in the future, but only five days in the future - and in that short time his life has been turned upside down and inside out.

"I thought the timer display was similar to the one I have on my new microwave at home but clearly it wasn't. It works in different increments, it was a terrible mistake, something to do with the decimal point. But, hey, what can I say?" said Dr John Eden of the Cryotech Corporation.

The specialists involved are trying to rectify Bryan's situation but it is not easy as technically he no longer exists - he's been declared dead by the state of California as part of the bureaucratic process involved in putting him into cryogenic suspension.

Most of Bryan's finances have been split between Cryotech and his wife. Those funds which are still in his name are on a low-interest fixed deposit and he is unable to access the account for another 507 years. Strictly speaking, Bryan's assets and finances were frozen when he was.

Bryan's wife has also moved on, and she is now in a long-term relationship with his doctor at Cryotech. Their relationship began, as these things often do, when he comforted her through the trauma of losing her husband.

It goes without saying that Bryan still has the original cancer, but he is also plagued by a series of side effects resulting from the snap-freezing process.

Bryan's core temperature now hovers just below that of normal, about 35C, and he has difficulty regulating that temperature, constantly turning heaters up and down in the hostel where he's now living.

Sexually, he is a disaster, unable to achieve and maintain an erection without the use of a hairdryer.

But worst of all, he suffers from regular bouts of a condition perhaps best known as chronic "icecream head" (I am not familiar with the medical term for it).

The sudden freezing sensation deep within his head has made it difficult for him to drive or hold down any sort of long-term job, especially if it involves public speaking.

Bryan is currently taking his wife to court for a percentage of her wealth but most legal experts agree that he doesn't have a leg to stand on as, technically, he walked out on her.

So as we struggle through another winter, spare a thought for Bryan Riley, a man who will be feeling it more than most this year - and he lives in San Diego.