The most significant of these embellishments concerns the degree of freezing.

The original accounts describe a body that appeared completely frozen, with skin too hard to inject and limbs too rigid to move.

These observations are clinical and real.

But some later accounts have described Jean Hilliard’s tissues as literally frozen to the core — as having her vital organs in a state of cellular ice that should have been incompatible with recovery.

This is not supported by the medical evidence.