Buried alive

[Blackleaf]

As told by Emily...

My mother swears this is true:

My great-great grandmother, ill for quite some time, finally passed away after laying in a coma for several days. My great-great grandfather was devastated beyond belief, as she was his one true love and they had been married over 50 years. They were married so long it seemed as if they knew each other's innermost thoughts.

After the doctor pronounced her dead, my great-great grandfather insisted that she was not. They had to literally pry him away from his wife's body so they could ready her for burial.

It is a fact that once upon a time, before modern embalming techniques were developed, people were found on very rare occasions to have been buried alive. It's most likely, however, that 18th and 19th century horror stories involving premature burial were inspired by the medical discovery that victims of suffocation and drowning could be resuscitated — that though they appeared dead, they really weren't. This was a frightening realization for many people.

In any case, so strong was the fear of "precipitate interment" during the 19th century that some of the wealthier folk were known to stipulate in their wills that their coffins be outfitted with signaling devices ... just in case.

Now, back in those days they had backyard burial plots and did not drain the body of its fluids. They simply prepared a proper coffin and committed the body (in its coffin) to its permanent resting place. Throughout this process, my great-great grandfather protested so fiercely that he had to be sedated and put to bed. His wife was buried and that was that.

That night he woke to a horrific vision of his wife hysterically trying to scratch her way out of the coffin. He phoned the doctor immediately and begged to have his wife's body exhumed. The doctor refused, but my great-great grandfather had this nightmare every night for a week, each time frantically begging to have his wife removed from the grave.

Finally the doctor gave in and, together with local authorities, exhumed the body. The coffin was pried open and to everyone's horror and amazement, my great-great grandmother's nails were bent back and there were obvious scratches on the inside of the coffin.

Just Dying to Get Out - From the Urban Legends Reference Pages

[isis-999]

There are so many stories like this, but they are not true a person can not live for that long, no air! watch myth busters they are already done this one.

[nick_fury]

Dare i ask how they did it?

[Jeenuh]

It's true, there's a disease that makes the persons breathing and heartrate slow down so much that it can't be detected and they were presumed dead.

[mako]

When the Interstate was being built through my hometown, a older local cemetary had to be moved. While exhuming the bodies for reburial in the relocated cemetary, it was found that many bodies were in unusual positions or turned over on their stomachs and that many of the coffins had deep scratches in the interior of the lids. There had been a flu pandemic 50 or 60 years before and it is theorized that a lot of people entered a coma-like trance that resembeled death and were inadvertantly buried alive! After reading about this in the local newspaper, I told my parents (and later my wife) that I want to be wrapped in deerskins and placed on a scaffold (a la Plains Indians) rather than buried!

[Shivel]

What a horrible way to die, I cant think of anything worse than being burried alive.

There should be a law where everyone must wait atleast a week from when the person is pronounced dead before they are actually buried. It just might save a few lives..

[mako]

That is one reason they had the dead "lie in state" (usually in the parlor) for a day or two and why they had wakes. These ideas went out with the advent of "modern scientific" thought in the late 1800s, unfortunately universal embalming did not become a fact until the 1950s.

[Purplos]

Interesting note: this is kinda where the term "dead ringer" came from. Back when medicine was not so sure, they would run a cord into the coffin and up back out of the grave attached to a bell. So if the person woke up in the coffin under the ground, they could ring the bell and summon help. The tradition of someone sitting at the grave for the first night after interrment was for this purpose as well.

[FreyKade]

its not possible that they can be found alive. but it is possible they wonke up soon after being burried and started trying to claw their way back out. i saw that episode of myth busters too

[aliennobasoure]

What a horrible way to die, I cant think of anything worse than being burried alive

728916[/snapback]

worse for me i,m cloustrofobic!

[ABOTU]

yah, a while ago a lot of people went into comas, and at this time, people didn't know what comas were. SO they put the people in the coffins. I've read a lot about the scratches on the coffin. Anybody ever read The House Of Usher ? yah, it deals with the same thing.

[Great Big Sea]

There are so many stories like this, but they are not true a person can not live for that long, no air! watch myth busters they are already done this one.

728060[/snapback]

I love MythBusters! Anyway yes this did that exact myth a week ago (I'm not sure if it was a new eppy or not) But they could only stay in the coffin for forty minutes before they would be in serious trouble. So I seriously doubt that she or anyone could stay in a coffin for over a week and not succum to dangerous chemicals or lack of air.

[Pyxis]

No you wouldn't live long.

Me, I'd die from heart failure, cause I'm claustrophobic and can't stand tight spaces. My heart starts to beat really fast and I can't breathe. It would be a horrible way to go.

[iac_tracker]

i could think of a worse way to dye on some show (a fake story of course) but anyways this guy was buried from the waist down and some cut his face so over night wolves and animals ate him alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hoagy]

Interesting note:  this is kinda where the term "dead ringer" came from.  Back when medicine was not so sure, they would run a cord into the coffin and up back out of the grave attached to a bell.  So if the person woke up in the coffin under the ground, they could ring the bell and summon help.  The tradition of someone sitting at the grave for the first night after interrment was for this purpose as well.

729039[/snapback]

this is also where the term 'saved by the bell' come from too....

[Moose-Of-Armageddon]

There was once a torture practised in the middle ages that U DEFINETLY wouldn't want to be given....

The victim would be put on a wheel with spokes.A man with an axe proceeded to hack their limbs off with the axe.If they didn't give in and tell, then the limbs would be threaded through the spokes of the wheel and the wheel would be risen through a gap in the roof, so the still-alive victim could be eaten by birds:(

Being buried alive is VERY nasty though

[ABOTU]

Interesting note:  this is kinda where the term "dead ringer" came from.  Back when medicine was not so sure, they would run a cord into the coffin and up back out of the grave attached to a bell.  So if the person woke up in the coffin under the ground, they could ring the bell and summon help.  The tradition of someone sitting at the grave for the first night after interrment was for this purpose as well.

729039[/snapback]

this is also where the term 'saved by the bell' come from too....

729985[/snapback]

I thought saved by the bell came from wrestling

[Ruby]

Thats a horrible way to die

[Moose-Of-Armageddon]

Interesting note:  this is kinda where the term "dead ringer" came from.  Back when medicine was not so sure, they would run a cord into the coffin and up back out of the grave attached to a bell.  So if the person woke up in the coffin under the ground, they could ring the bell and summon help.  The tradition of someone sitting at the grave for the first night after interrment was for this purpose as well.

729039[/snapback]

this is also where the term 'saved by the bell' come from too....

729985[/snapback]

I thought saved by the bell came from wrestling

730870[/snapback]

Nah, it came from boxing

[nick_fury]

I thought that show in the 90s made it up

Edited July 14, 2005 by nick_fury

[JennRose]

this is also where the term 'saved by the bell' come from too....

729985[/snapback]

I thought saved by the bell came from wrestling

730870[/snapback]

Nah, it came from boxing

733780[/snapback]

I thought it was boxing, too. Well, we can't ALL be right.

[Moose-Of-Armageddon]

I can never be right......

*Sulks*

Edited July 14, 2005 by Moose-Of-Armageddon

[OldTimeRadio]

Fingernail scratches on the underside of long-buried coffin lids DO NOT neccessarily indicate that some unfortunate awoke after burial and frantically attempted to scratch his (her) way free.

In the days before modern embalming the decaying corpse released copious amounts of hydrogen gas. The force of these gases exiting the body was oftentimes violent enough that the dead body MOVED about in the coffin, thrusting the arms, hands and fingernails against the coffin lid and lining.

This is also the reason that when very old graves are exhumed the skeletons are sometimes discovered laying face-downwards in their coffins.

[Withoutnight]

this is also where the term 'saved by the bell' come from too....

Also "The graveyard shift", for the poor guy having to stay up and listen for any ringing!

[Method]

I think this would have to be my biggest fear, being buried alive knowing that you cant do anything to save your life. Almost as bad as drowning, or slowly dieing in a fire.