Want to be frozen like Ted Williams?

'Cryonics' company to open new laboratory in Florida

Ed Reinke / AP file	Ted Williams, shown here in an Oct. 24, 1999 file photo, had his head and body cryonically frozen after he died.

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updated 3:27 p.m. ET July 15, 2005

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. - A “cryonics” company whose manager worked for the firm that froze the head of baseball legend Ted Williams plans to open a facility here.

Suspended Animation expects to open in August. The facility was approved 4-1 by Boynton Beach commissioners in March, after being repeatedly rejected by Boca Raton officials.

Manager Charles Platt was the chief operating officer of Alcor Life Extension Foundation, which reportedly severed Williams’ head and stored the body parts in a steel bin in Arizona after he died in July 2002.

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Cryonics supporters claim that future scientific breakthroughs will allow doctors to bring the frozen bodies of those who have died back to life.

“We’re about defeating mortality,” said Platt, 60, a science fiction writer with no medical background.

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But most scientists contend that is highly unlikely and won’t happen anytime soon.

“It’s out of the question in the foreseeable future,” said Mehmet Toner, a Harvard biomedical engineer. “We cannot even freeze (and revive) individual organs, let alone freeze a whole human being.”