(The images used in the story may be disturbing. Reader discretion advised)
“My last will is to leave something behind that would have an impact on the whole human race.”
These were the words of Sue Potter, a woman who lived for 84 years, and decided to donate her body posthumously to be frozen and sliced into 27000 pieces- all to become a ‘digital cadaver’ and teach medical students.
Potter, a mother-of-two, died of pneumonia in 2015. The saw took 60 days to cut her into pieces, which were then preserved for over three years and photographed to be digitized in order to teach students.
Her entire journey has been documented by National Geographic and published in the January 2019 special issue, The Future of Medicine.
Vic Spitzer, director of the Center for Human Simulation at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, holds Potter’s frozen corpse. She donated her body to be a “visible human.”
This story is about death. But in this case, we’re talking about the future dead.Vic Spitzer
As reported in Daily Mirror, Potter got inspired after reading an article about the University of Colorado’s Human Simulation Project and their Visible human project and decided to donate her body for the cause, becoming the first ‘immortal corpse’.
While she was married and had two daughters, she was alone by the age of 73, for reasons not known.
Dr Vic Spitzer rejected her at first as she had diabetes, melanoma and various surgeries. She’d also had a double mastectomy for breast cancer. But he agreed on the condition that she record everything for the rest of her life.
Sue lived for another 15 years, each day keeping a record of her health.
When Potter signed on to Spitzer’s project, she thought she would die within a year. Instead, she lived for 15 and found purpose in speaking to medical students.National Geographic
Before dying, she asked to see the saw that would slice her and the fridge she will be stored in. Sue also asked that her body be surrounded by roses and that classical music blared from the speakers while she was being cut up, as Daily Mirror reports.
The process of bringing her to life using 3D imaging and narration in her own voice would now commence.
The goal someday is to have enough bodies on your ‘bookshelf’ that you can pull out the body that makes the most sense to simulate the pathology or procedure.Spitzer to ABC News
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