More recently at the cemetery in the municipality of Riachon das Nevis, in northeastern Brazil, a terrible incident occurred. For several days, people living nearby complained about muffled screams coming from the churchyard. Only later did it become clear: all this time, a living person was fighting death in one of the graves!
Only 11 days after the funeral, relatives came to the aid of the unfortunate woman. Rosangel Almeida dos Santos. However, by that time the woman could no longer be saved...
The people who tore up the grave said: Rosangela’s body was still warm, and the forehead, hands and feet of the deceased were completely covered with abrasions and bruises. The fingernails were torn off, the nails in the upper part of the coffin were partially pulled out, and on the lid itself the relatives saw stains of recently dried blood.
According to the unfortunate mother, at the age of seven, Rosangela began to frequently lose consciousness. Since then, the woman has been taking antiepileptic drugs. Attacks of sudden weakness did not leave the poor fellow until last days her life.
And a week before the funeral, relatives rushed 37-year-old Rosangela to the hospital. The patient, who complained of extreme fatigue, experienced two cardiac arrests but died of septic shock. At least, this is exactly what was stated in the document issued to the mother of the deceased by doctors.
Isamara, the sister of the woman buried alive, examined the opened coffin and was sure that at the time of the funeral, Rosangela was still alive. Alas, the unfortunate woman who woke up in the grave could not get out of the concrete tomb on her own, and help arrived too late.
Relatives of the deceased are sure that the cause of the monstrous tragedy was the criminal negligence of doctors. However, they have not yet brought charges against the doctors - they are waiting for the final verdict of the police.
First, Rosangela's body must be examined by law enforcement officers. Well, you can see how they opened the grave of the unfortunate woman in the video below.
It’s scary to even imagine what the buried woman experienced when she realized where she ended up. I wouldn't even wish for such a fate. worst enemy! But some, they say, of their own free will go to their graves alive... After such incidents, it is difficult to understand such people!
The tradition of burying the dead with things that could be useful to them in the afterlife existed already in ancient Egypt. A dozen years ago, several residents of Cape Town, South Africa, who were afraid of falling asleep under the influence of the witchcraft spells of ill-wishers and being buried alive, asked to put phones with spare batteries in coffins in the hope of waking up and calling for help.
In America, cases have been recorded where corpses were even cremated with telephones. Fulfilling the last wishes of the deceased, relatives and friends stuffed cell phones into their pockets without informing the crematorium workers. This arbitrariness can lead to trouble, because batteries tend to explode at high temperatures.
The eccentrics' fears of being buried alive are not unfounded. No one knows exactly how many people were buried who fell into lethargic sleep. No one has ever kept such statistics, but without much risk of error we can assume that the count goes into the thousands!
Sailors have long had the custom of sewing a dead man into a shroud and throwing him into the sea. In order not to accidentally bury a living person, the last stitch was made through... the nose of the deceased. If there was no reaction, the body was thrown into the water.
Mummy in the museum
People have always been afraid of being buried alive, but in XVIII-XIX centuries this fear turned into real hysteria. Panic gripped not only illiterate peasants, but also very educated people. First US President George Washington, for example, demanded that he be buried no earlier than two days after the doctors declared him dead.
There were originals who insisted that before burial... their heads would be cut off. Perhaps everyone was outdone by Miss Beswick, a resident of Manchester, who died at the end of the 18th century. She wrote 20 thousand guineas to her doctor in her will, a lot of money at that time, but set one condition: her body should not be buried. The old woman wanted the doctor to embalm her, put her in his operating room and carefully examine her every day for signs of life. For several years the poor fellow honestly fulfilled the terrible condition. When his patience came to an end, he hid the mummy in a huge grandfather clock. After the death of the doctor, the embalmed body of the eccentric was kept for some time in the Manchester Museum, after which it was buried.
The fear of being buried alive reached its apogee in mid-19th century. In 1846, a competition was even organized in which participants competed to invent a reliable way to determine whether a person had died or fallen into a lethargic sleep. One Frenchman made pliers that were used to pull the nipples of a corpse with all his might. Wild pain, in his opinion, should have raised even the dead from the grave. An inventor from Sweden advised throwing insects into the ear of a dead person. The French doctor Bosho was recognized as the winner of the competition. He received 1.5 thousand gold francs for a completely reasonable proposal - to check with a stethoscope, which had been invented shortly before, whether the heart of a deceased person was beating.
Coffins were equipped with a wide variety of devices and devices that allowed the “living” dead to report that they were alive. The bell tower of the British engineer was very popular Bateson. A rope with a bell was tied to the corpse's hand. When the person came to his senses, he pulled the rope, resulting in a ringing sound. Bateson's bell tower was such a success that its inventor even received the Order of the British Empire from the hands of Queen Victoria. Alas, further fate The engineer himself turned out to be sad. Towards the end of his life he went crazy from the same fear. At first, Bateson stopped trusting his own invention, then he asked to have his body cremated. Fearing that his request would not be fulfilled, he doused himself with linseed oil and set himself on fire.
The Germans approached the solution of the problem with their characteristic pedantry. They were in no hurry with funerals and kept the coffins in the mortuary until the bodies began to decompose - until late XIX centuries, decomposition was considered the main evidence of irreversible death.
The fashion craze has not spared Russia either. In 1897 Count Karnissky, former chamberlain of Nicholas II, presented a modernized coffin to the Parisians. It was equipped with a long tube extending to the surface, a bell and a red flag. When the deceased came to his senses and began to move, the tube automatically provided oxygen access. At the same time, the bell began to ring loudly and the flag began to flutter.
The inventor thought of everything except one detail. He did not take into account that during decomposition some “stirring” also occurs. The result of this omission was hundreds of cases when cemetery workers ran to the ringing, dug up a coffin and found a half-decomposed body in it.
Super coffins of the 20th century
Although when modern development In medicine, the probability of being buried alive is practically reduced to zero; such cases still occasionally occur today.
In the late 90s, a British doctor mistakenly declared her dead Daphnu Bank, the wife of a farmer from Cambridgeshire. It is unknown how the matter would have ended if not for the observant undertaker. Arriving at the morgue to pick up the body, he noticed that the corpse’s leg was twitching slightly and heard a barely audible snoring. In the case of Daphne, who is now alive and well, everything ended well. Alas, tragic stories much more.
Two days after the funeral, the Guinean Mbaswa woke up from sleep and began pounding on the coffin lid with all his might. The poor man was saved, but his “rebirth” did not bring him happiness. Considering him “marked” for death, not only his friends and acquaintances, but also his relatives and his fiancée turned away from him.
Ali Abdel-Rahim Mohammed, teacher Arabic from Egypt, suddenly lost consciousness while on vacation in the Mediterranean. The doctor from the first aid station on the beach found no signs of life in him and decided that he died suddenly from sunstroke. Five hours later, Ali’s body was taken out of the refrigerator and taken for an autopsy. On the operating table, the teacher... woke up. After spending several hours in the refrigerator, he was so cold that he could not speak. The pathologist, whose hand was grabbed by the “dead man” like a vice, ran out of the operating room in horror. Ali stood up with difficulty and hobbled to look for his phone to tell his family that rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated.
The Alexandria pathologist was lucky. The same cannot be said about another Egyptian doctor who heard screams coming from the morgue refrigerator. When the doctor saw the resurrected corpse, his heart could not stand it, and he collapsed dead. In February 2000, a businessman James McCarthy suddenly it became bad. On the way to the hospital, he fell into a coma. Deciding that James had died and there was nothing for them to do in the hospital, the relatives turned around and went to the morgue.
When McCarthy was taken out of the refrigerator the next day, he was dead but bruised all over his body. When James woke up, he tried to get out of the refrigerator, but was unable to free himself and ended up freezing to death.
Of course, people who were afraid of being buried alive did not stop fighting in the 20th century. In the 70s, fancy coffins costing $7.5 thousand, which contained almost everything necessary to sustain life, gained popularity among wealthy Americans. An impressive supply of provisions made it possible to live underground for a long time. A complex control panel regulated the air supply. If the “deceased” was stuffy, he could even turn on the fan. To perform natural needs, the supercoffin was equipped with a chemical toilet. In addition to these vital items, the inventive undertakers provided an electric alarm clock, a short-wave transmitter, a telephone and a small television. Particularly demanding customers were offered a miniature oven, refrigerator and even a tape recorder, not included in the standard set, for an additional fee.
Not a single case of rescue of the owner of a supercoffin was recorded. There is nothing particularly surprising here. On the one hand, all the owners of supercoffins most likely did not fall asleep, but died for real. On the other hand, it is not very clear why a person who has woken up in such a coffin would strive to return to the sinful earth?
The fate of being buried alive can befall each of us. For example, you may fall into a lethargic sleep, your relatives will think that you are dead, they will drink jelly at your funeral and hammer a nail into the lid of your coffin.
The worst option is when a person is deliberately buried in a coffin in order to scare or get rid of him: according to some rumors, the famous Jap liked to do this.
Maybe that’s why all the “bohemians” and the crowd talked to him so nicely?
Many of us have watched the movie Buried Alive, where main character comes to his senses and finds that he is buried alive in a wooden box, where oxygen is gradually running out. You can hardly imagine a worse situation. And those who watched this film to the end will agree with this.
Horror stories about someone being buried alive have existed since the Middle Ages, if not earlier. And then they were not horror stories, but real facts. The level of development of medicine was too low and such cases could well have happened. There are rumors that a similar terrible situation happened to the great writer Nikolai Gogol, and not only to him.
As for our time, there is practically no chance of being buried alive. The fact is that for some reason curious doctors are extremely fond of clarifying why this or that person died, and to do this they open him up, examine his organs and, upon completion, carefully stitch him up. You understand that in this situation it will not be possible to wake up in a coffin; rather, the pathologist’s report will contain the line “The autopsy showed that death occurred as a result of an autopsy.”
How to escape if you wake up in a coffin, and above you there is a boarded-up lid and a couple of meters of earth? How to get out of the coffin
First of all, don't panic! Seriously, panic can significantly reduce the time available to survive. In a state of panic, you will use oxygen more actively. It's usually possible to live in a coffin for one or two hours - provided you don't panic. If you know how to meditate, do it immediately. Try to relax as much as possible, this will help you think more clearly.
Check if you can call. These days, it is not uncommon for people to be buried with cell phones, tablets, or other communications devices. If this is the case in your case, try contacting relatives or friends. Once you do this, relax and meditate to conserve oxygen.
Don't have a cell phone? Okay... Considering that you are still alive in a coffin with limited air supply, you were buried recently. This means that the ground must be soft enough.
Loosen the lid with your hands in the cheapest fiberboard coffins, you can even make a hole ( wedding ring, belt buckle...)
Cross your arms over your chest, grab your shoulders with your palms and pull your shirt or T-shirt up, tie it in a knot above your head, hanging like a bag on your head, it will protect you from suffocation if you hit the ground in your face.
If your coffin is not yet damaged by the gravity of the earth, use your feet to make a hole in the coffin. The best place for this purpose there will be the middle of the lid.
Once you have successfully cracked the coffin open, use your hands and feet to push the soil coming into the hole towards the edges of the coffin. Fill the coffin with as much earth as possible, compacting it so as not to lose the opportunity to stick your head and shoulders into the hole.
By all means try to sit down, the earth will fill the empty space and shift in your favor, do not stop and continue to breathe calmly.
Once you have packed as much dirt inside the coffin as you can, use all your strength to stand up straight. It may be necessary to make the hole in the lid larger, but this will not be difficult with a cheap coffin.
Once your head is on the surface and you can breathe freely, don't hesitate to let yourself panic a little, even scream if necessary. If no one comes to your aid, pull yourself out of the ground, squirming like a worm.
Remember, the soil in a fresh grave is always loose and “it’s relatively easy to fight with it.” It’s much more difficult to get out during rain: wet soil is denser and heavier. The same can be said about clay.
If your relatives are not cheapskates and have buried you in a stainless steel coffin, the best thing to do in this case is to try to get loud sounds from the coffin by pressing on the lid where it is attached or knocking on the coffin with a belt buckle or something similar. Perhaps someone is still standing near the grave.
Please note that lighting a match or lighter if you have one is a bad idea. An open fire will very quickly destroy the entire supply of oxygen.
Buried alive
It is no coincidence that in almost all nations it is customary to hold a burial ceremony not immediately, but after a certain number of days after death. There were many cases when “dead people” came to life at funerals, and there were also cases when they woke up inside the coffin. Since ancient times, man has been afraid of being buried alive. Taphophobia - the fear of being buried alive is observed in many people. It is believed that this is one of the basic phobias of the human psyche. According to the laws of the Russian Federation, the deliberate burial of a person alive is considered murder committed with extreme cruelty and is punished accordingly.
Imaginary death
Lethargy is an unexplored painful condition that is similar to a normal dream. Even in ancient times, signs of death were considered to be the absence of breathing and the cessation of heartbeat. However, in the absence modern equipment it was difficult to determine where the imaginary death was and where the real one was. Nowadays there are practically no cases of funerals of living people, but a couple of centuries ago this was a fairly common occurrence. Lethargic sleep usually lasts from several hours to several weeks. But there are cases when lethargy lasted for months. Lethargic sleep differs from coma in that the human body maintains the vital functions of organs and is not under threat of death. There are many examples of lethargic sleep and related issues in the literature, but they do not always have a scientific basis and are often fictional. Thus, the science fiction novel by H.G. Wells “When the Sleeper Awake” tells about a man who “slept” for 200 years. This is certainly impossible.
Scary awakening
There are quite a lot of stories when people plunged into a state of lethargic sleep; let’s focus on the most interesting ones. In 1773, a terrible incident occurred in Germany: after the burial of a pregnant girl, strange sounds began to be heard from her grave. It was decided to dig up the grave and everyone who was there was shocked by what they saw. As it turned out, the girl began to give birth and as a result came out of a state of lethargic sleep. She was able to give birth in such cramped conditions, but due to lack of oxygen, neither the baby nor his mother managed to survive.
Another story, but not so terrible, happened in England in 1838. One official was always afraid of being buried alive and, as luck would have it, his fear materialized. A respected man woke up in a coffin and started screaming. At that moment, a young man was passing through the cemetery, who, hearing the man’s voice, ran for help. When the coffin was dug and opened, people saw the dead man with a frozen, eerie grimace. The victim died a few minutes before being rescued. Doctors diagnosed him with cardiac arrest; the man could not withstand such a terrible awakening to reality.
There were people who perfectly understood what lethargic sleep was and what to do if such a misfortune overtook them. For example, the English playwright Wilkie Collins was afraid that he would be buried while he was still alive. There was always a note near his bed, which spoke of the measures that should be taken before his burial.
Method of execution
As a way death penalty Live burial was used by the ancient Romans. For example, if a girl broke her vow of virginity, she was buried alive. A similar method of execution was used for many Christian martyrs. In the 10th century, Princess Olga gave the order to bury the Drevlyan ambassadors alive. During the Middle Ages in Italy, unrepentant murderers faced the fate of people buried alive. The Zaporozhye Cossacks buried the murderer alive in a coffin with the person whom he took life. In addition, the Germans used methods of execution through burial alive during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War 1941-1945. The Nazis executed Jews using this terrible method.
Ritual burials
It is worth noting that there are cases when people, of their own free will, find themselves buried alive. So, among certain nationalities South America, Africa and Siberia there is a ritual in which people bury the shaman of their village alive. It is believed that during the “pseudo-funeral” ritual, the healer receives the gift of communication with the souls of deceased ancestors.
As a rule, it is very difficult to find out what diseases famous historical figures died from. For example, it took 150 years to establish the exact cause of the death of the great composer Frederic Chopin. He died from a rare complication of tuberculosis, pericarditis, which causes swelling of the tissues surrounding the heart. The reason was found due to the fact that the heart of the great composer was preserved in a special vessel.
Fears of Great Men
Yes, you got it right. Chopin's heart has been carefully preserved since his death in 1849. Before his death, he asked that his heart be cut out and buried in Poland, the country where he was born. The historical phrase uttered by the great man was: “Swear that you will force me to be cut open so that I will not be buried alive.”
Chopin suffered from a phobia of being buried alive. Great composer was far from the only one famous person suffering from such fear. In fact, taphephobia was quite common at the time.
George Washington was so afraid of being buried alive that he wanted his dead body to lie there for three days before being buried. “That way, those around him could be convinced that he was really dead,” writes Sarah Murray in her book “Coming Out.”
The writer Hans Christian Andersen and the founder of the famous prize, Alfred Nobel, also suffered from this fear and wanted their veins to be opened after they seemed to have passed away. This way, those around them could be convinced that they are really not alive.
Burial of living people in biblical times
Live burials have existed since biblical times. According to Kenneth W. Iserson, professor of emergency medicine at the University of Arizona and author of Death to Dust, taphephobia was based on a historical reality that has deep roots.
"We've known that the fear of being buried alive has existed since biblical times," he says. At the time Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was customary to wrap bodies and bury them in caves. Then a few days later someone went to check if the people were alive. The reason why such a procedure was carried out was that such cases sometimes occurred.
In past centuries, diseases were assessed differently
“In cases where people were mistakenly buried alive, we cannot reliably judge what diseases they suffered from,” Iserson says. It is possible that in the 19th century, typhoid fever, which has a very slow progression, led to some premature burials. In general, it is very difficult to determine how famous figures died, judging only from historical records, since the understanding of diseases by people of past centuries differs significantly from how we regard them at the present time.
For a long period of time, instruments for determining organ function were inaccurate, and the only sure way to determine whether a person was dead or not was to leave the body on the surface for a while and see if it had rotted.
“Think about it,” Easterson says. How could people in the past determine that a person was dead? Nowadays this is not difficult, since we resort to using modern technologies, for example, electrocardiograms.”
Cases of burial alive in the twentieth century
Interestingly, there are many real cases, when some citizens were buried alive even in the 20th century. A striking example is the shocking story of Essie Dunbar. The woman suffered from epilepsy, and in 1915 it became known that this South Carolinian had died. Her sister arrived at the burial site after the coffin had been lowered into the ground, and the gravediggers agreed to raise it again so that the relative could see the deceased one last time.
“The screws were unscrewed, the coffin lid opened, and the deceased sat down in her coffin and looked at her sister, smiling,” writes medical professor Ian Bondeson of Buried Alive. “The mourners, including my sister, thought it was a ghost and fled in fear.”
In Essie's case, it can be concluded that the woman probably suffered from attacks that caused her to lose consciousness. That's why people thought she was dead. After this strange incident, the woman lived for several more decades and died a natural death only in 1955.
Victorian burials
Taphephobia reached its peak during victorian era, when craftsmen began to profit from making "safety coffins". Some of them were basically above-ground graves with a hatch that the buried person could unscrew if he suddenly woke up. Some deceased people were attached to an overhead bell so that the person could ring from his coffin if he came to life.
Purchasing these elaborate coffins could be a chance to overcome the fear of being buried alive, but Iserson notes that there are no proven cases in which these devices have saved someone's life.
Cases that occurred in the 20th century
The fear of being buried alive began to fade in the 20th century when new burial practices emerged. After cremating the body or embalming it with formaldehyde, it could be stated with certainty that the person was dead.
But people still wake up in morgues, although this happens extremely rarely. In November 2014, morgue staff observed a 91-year-old Polish woman who began to show signs of life. In the same year there were two similar cases: one in Kenya and one in Mississippi.
Chopin's story can be perceived as quite dramatic, given the time period in which it took place. But recent cases in morgues can be fully understood by readers.
), where the main character comes to his senses and discovers that he is buried alive in a wooden box, where oxygen is gradually running out. You can hardly imagine a worse situation. And those who watched this film to the end will agree with this.
Still from the film “Buried Alive,” directed by Rodrigo Cortes.
So let's look at a few simple rules that would help you survive if you found yourself in a similar situation. I would like to hope that this will never happen to any of us, but it is worth remembering a few rules and relying only on yourself.
- Don't waste air. In a classic coffin, the air supply is for an hour, maximum two. Inhale deeply, exhale slowly. After inhaling, do not swallow, this causes hyperventilation. Do not light matches or a lighter, this takes away oxygen, but it is not forbidden to use a flashlight. Don’t scream: screaming increases panic, increases heart rate and breathing, and therefore increases air consumption.
- Loosen the lid with your hands; in the cheapest fiberboard coffins you can even make a hole (with a wedding ring, a belt buckle...)
- Cross your arms over your chest, grabbing your shoulders with your palms and pull your shirt up and tie it in a knot above your head; hanging like a bag on your head, it will protect you from suffocation when you hit the ground in your face.
- Knock the lid down with your feet. Cheap coffins tend to break under the weight of the earth immediately after they are buried!
- As soon as the lid breaks, direct the earth from your head to your feet; when there is little space, try to press the earth in different directions with your feet.
- By all means try to sit down, the earth will fill the empty space and shift in your favor, do not stop and continue to breathe calmly.
- Get up!
Buried alive
It is no coincidence that in almost all nations it is customary to hold a burial ceremony not immediately, but after a certain number of days after death. There were many cases when “dead people” came to life at funerals, and there were also cases when they woke up inside the coffin. Since ancient times, man has been afraid of being buried alive. Taphophobia - the fear of being buried alive is observed in many people. It is believed that this is one of the basic phobias of the human psyche. According to the laws of the Russian Federation, the deliberate burial of a person alive is considered murder committed with extreme cruelty and is punished accordingly.Imaginary death
Lethargy is an unexplored painful condition that is similar to a normal dream. Even in ancient times, signs of death were considered to be the absence of breathing and the cessation of heartbeat. However, in the absence of modern equipment, it was difficult to determine where the imaginary death was and where the real one was. Nowadays there are practically no cases of funerals of living people, but a couple of centuries ago this was a fairly common occurrence. Lethargic sleep usually lasts from several hours to several weeks. But there are cases when lethargy lasted for months. Lethargic sleep differs from coma in that the human body maintains the vital functions of organs and is not under threat of death. There are many examples of lethargic sleep and related issues in the literature, but they do not always have a scientific basis and are often fictional. Thus, the science fiction novel by H.G. Wells “When the Sleeper Awake” tells about a man who “slept” for 200 years. This is certainly impossible.Scary awakening
There are quite a lot of stories when people plunged into a state of lethargic sleep; let’s focus on the most interesting ones. In 1773, a terrible incident occurred in Germany: after the burial of a pregnant girl, strange sounds began to be heard from her grave. It was decided to dig up the grave and everyone who was there was shocked by what they saw. As it turned out, the girl began to give birth and as a result came out of a state of lethargic sleep. She was able to give birth in such cramped conditions, but due to lack of oxygen, neither the baby nor his mother managed to survive.
Premature burial, Antoine Wirtz (1806-1865).
Another story, but not so terrible, happened in England in 1838. One official was always afraid of being buried alive and, as luck would have it, his fear materialized. A respected man woke up in a coffin and started screaming. At that moment, a young man was passing through the cemetery, who, hearing the man’s voice, ran for help. When the coffin was dug and opened, people saw the dead man with a frozen, eerie grimace. The victim died a few minutes before being rescued. Doctors diagnosed him with cardiac arrest; the man could not withstand such a terrible awakening to reality.
There were people who perfectly understood what lethargic sleep was and what to do if such a misfortune overtook them. For example, the English playwright Wilkie Collins was afraid that he would be buried while he was still alive. There was always a note near his bed, which spoke of the measures that should be taken before his burial.