A man is suing a Scottsdale cryonics company for $1M — and the return of his dad’s frozen head

Kurt Pilgeram of Dutton, Mont., is in a legal battle with a cryonics company that he claims mishandled his father’s remains. He would like his father’s head returned after the company seperated it from and cremated his father’s body, which Pilgeram says is a violation of the agreement between the company and his father. /Photo: Rion Sanders/Great Falls Tribune 

By Karl Puckett | Great Falls Tribune 

Related: Lawsuit against cryogenics company reminds me of my uneasy tour of the ‘life extension’ facility by Phil Riske | Senior Reporter/Writer

Laurence Pilgeram, who grew up on a farm south of Great Falls, agreed to pay Alcor Life Extension Foundation $120,000 to preserve his body indefinitely at a temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius, in the outside hope that some future technology would restore his life.

It’s called cryonics.

In April 2015, about a month after Pilgeram died in California, a box containing his ashes arrived at the home of his son, Kurt Pilgeram, 1,300 miles away, outside of Dutton, Montana, population 300.

It contained Pilgeram’s body from the shoulders down, but his head had been separated and placed in a vat of liquid nitrogen in Arizona, where it presumably will remain forever, or at least until Mr. Pilgeram is restored.

“They chopped his head off, burned his body, put it in a box and sent it to my house,” Kurt Pilgeram said recently at his Dutton-area home, where the Rocky Mountains were visible in the distance, and a tractor seeding spring wheat in a field kicked up dust.

Kurt Pilgeram was stunned and angry at the way his father’s remains were handled. His father, he said, wanted his entire body preserved. Now Pilgeram is seeking in excess of $1 million in damages and an apology from Alcor — and the return of his father’s head.

“I want people to know what’s going on,” he said.

Liquid nitrogen keeps preservation cylinders, called “do-ers”, are kept at -320 degrees. /Photo: 12 News

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