‘Patients’ who pay $200,000 to be frozen after death are waiting to be reborn in an Australian shed

Southern Cryonics in Holbrook has seven ‘patients’ suspended in liquid nitrogen so far. Pictured is Jim Davis from Parkes Liquid Nitrogen topping up one of the dewars. Photograph: Simon Dallinger/The Guardian

I’m standing atop a very tall ladder, peering down through a haze of liquid nitrogen vapour into a giant stainless steel flask containing three smaller containers.

Inside the smaller wedges – which are labelled 005, 006, 007 – are three of Peter Tsolakides’ “patients”. The frozen bodies belong to people who, before their death, paid handsomely to be cryogenically frozen in the hope of one day being brought back to life.