The body of a 14-year-old girl, who fought for the right to be frozen after her death, will be laid to rest in one of these tanks (Picture: EPA)

This is the -196C cryo-tank where the 14-year-old British girl who fought for the right to be frozen after her death will be laid to rest.

Teenage cancer patient, 14, becomes first Brit to be cryogenically frozen

The 10ft high tank, pictured for the first time, will store her body upside down in a white fibre-glass vat of liquid nitrogen.

Her body will be strapped to a wooden plank, wrapped in a sheet and a nylon sleeping bag.

The girl, known only as JS or Patient 143, will be joined by five other bodies. Her tank is sealed shut but operations manager Andy Zawacki checks it daily through a peep hole.


Her body will be strapped to a wooden plank, wrapped in a sheet and a nylon sleeping bag. (Fle picture: Getty)

She arrived at the controversial Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Michigan, eight days after her death last month from a rare form of cancer.

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Her resting place has the code HSSV-6-18 and is within a huge warehouse in an industrial estate in Detroit.



There are a total of 145 bodies stored in 21 ‘cryostat’ tanks at -196C. The girl is the youngest.

Alongside them are the bodies of dogs, cats, birds, an iguana and a hamster.

There are a total of 145 bodies stored in 21 ‘cryostat’ tanks at -196C. The girl is the youngest (Picture: EPA)

Mr Zawacki, 50, who also plans to be frozen at the institute after his death, helped design some of the first tanks at the warehouse 30 years ago.

He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We usually have six human bodies to a tank but one only has five because there’s a 32st man in it and he takes up more room.

‘People ask if they can be frozen alongside their loved ones but we can’t do that because once a tank is sealed it is sealed.’

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Mr Zawacki, 50, who also plans to be frozen at the institute after his death, helped design some of the first tanks at the warehouse 30 years ago.

Within the warehouse, there is a ‘memorial’ room where a large TV shows pictures of the dead on it. Some families visit it or send flowers on anniversaries.

The 14-year-old, who died in October, was at the centre of a bitter legal row between her parents over her desire to be frozen after her death until there was a possibility of bringing her back to life.

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After writing a letter to a High Court judge, in which she asked for her body to be stored in liquid nitrogen after her death, her wish was granted.

She was ‘cryopreserved’ on October 17 in a £37,000 procedure paid for by her grandparents.

In his first interview since the court case, her father told the paper: ‘I believe they are selling false hope to those who are frightened of dying – taking advantage of vulnerable people.

She was ‘cryopreserved’ on October 17 in a £37,000 procedure paid for by her grandparents. (Picture: EPA)

‘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.’

He added: ‘I think it would be doubly impossible to both bring her back from the dead and cure her cancer, and companies should not hold out some false hope.’

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Clive Coen, a neuroscience professor at King’s College London, said cryogenics companies should not be allowed to advertise because there is no evidence the technique works in humans.

He said: ‘There is no evidence outside amphibia and tissue slices that any of this works. We’re not at a point where regulation is appropriate.

‘The whole body is just ridiculous and the whole brain is only slightly less ridiculous.’