In 1845, F.R. Crozier was appointed doctor and chief science officer for an Arctic expedition led by famed explorer Sir John Franklin, who sought the fabled Northwest Passage; the expedition consisted of two ships, the "Terror" and the "Erebus". Six months after the departure of the expedition, the ships became trapped in the Arctic ice which never melted; in October 1847, Sir John seth forth with a party in search of help and was never seen again. On 22 April 1848, with the stores of food nearly exhausted, Crozier led the remainder of the crew out of the doomed ships and set out over the ice for a 600-miles march to safety. Many of the crew died of exposure during the march and were left unburied, and a number of advance scouts were apparently flash-frozen where they stood; with the remaining crew dying one by one, on the night of 8 May Crozier, desperate to find a way to survive, ingested an elixir he had prepared before, which induced a state of suspended animation that his men mistook for death. His plan was to remain where he fell, allowing the ice to preserve him until the weather warmed enough to revive him, upon which he wouldn't need food or substance; what he had not anticipated was that, out of respect for him and his position, his remaining crew decided to bury him. Interred in permafrost, the sun never reached Crozier and he spent the next 148 years buried alive and going insane.