The man came to life in the coffin. Scientists: it is possible to revive dead people a day after death. Teenager woke up at his own funeral

02.09.2020

And there is another horror story.

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 the main character wakes up to find himself buried alive in a wooden box that is gradually running out of oxygen. 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 were 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 (with a wedding ring, a 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 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 ability 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.

Unless your relatives are 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 banging 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 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.
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 deceased 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

Burial alive was used as a method of capital punishment 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 had taken the life of. In addition, the Germans used methods of execution through burial alive during the Great Patriotic War of 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. Thus, certain peoples of South America, Africa and Siberia have 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.

Sources:

Legends are associated with him, novels are written about him. It is probably difficult to find any other phenomenon with which so many prejudices and superstitions are associated. You need to have a correct idea of lethargic sleep, if only to broaden your horizons.

Lethargic sleep or lethargy (oblivion, inaction) is a state of pathological (painful) sleep with a more or less pronounced weakening of all manifestations of life, including immobility, a significant decrease in metabolism, weakening or lack of response to sound and pain stimuli, as well as touch. Lethargic sleep occurs during hysteria, general exhaustion, and after severe excitement. The changes that occur in the human body during lethargic sleep have not been studied enough.

Myths about lethargic sleep

Myths about those buried alive, in lethargic sleep, come from time immemorial and have a certain basis. Once upon a time, in crypts and underground, dead people were found with torn shrouds and bloody hands, who were trying to escape from the coffins. Sometimes such people were lucky and were saved by cemetery thieves who dug up graves to rob the deceased, or simply by people passing by who heard noises from the grave (unless, of course, they ran away in horror). In England, there has been a law for many years (it is still in force today) according to which all morgues must have a bell with a rope so that the revived can call for help.

It is known that Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was very afraid of being buried alive and therefore asked his loved ones to bury him only when obvious signs of decomposition of the body appeared. However, in May 1931, during the liquidation of the Danilov Monastery cemetery in Moscow, where the great writer was buried, during exhumation it was discovered that Gogol’s skull was turned to one side, and the upholstery of the coffin was torn.

The case with the famous Italian poet of the 14th century Petrarch would have been exactly the same, but it ended happily. At the age of 40, Petrarch became seriously ill and “died,” and when they began to bury him, he woke up and said that he felt great.

What does a person look like in a lethargic sleep?

In severe, rare manifestations of lethargy, there really is a picture of imaginary death: the skin is cold and pale, the pupils almost do not react to light, breathing and pulse are difficult to detect, blood pressure is low, strong painful stimuli do not cause a reaction. For several days, patients do not drink or eat, the excretion of urine and feces stops, weight loss and dehydration occur.

In mild cases of lethargy, there is immobility, muscle relaxation, even breathing, sometimes fluttering of the eyelids, and rolling of the eyeballs. The ability to swallow remains, and chewing and swallowing movements follow in response to irritation. The perception of the surroundings may be partially preserved.

Bouts of lethargy begin suddenly and end suddenly. There are cases with harbingers of lethargic sleep, as well as with disturbances in well-being and behavior after waking up.

The duration of lethargic sleep ranges from several hours to several days and even weeks. Individual observations of long-term lethargic sleep with preserved ability to eat and perform physiological acts are described. Lethargy does not pose a danger to life.

Lethargic sleep in forensic medicine

In severe cases of lethargy, especially in forensic medical practice, when examining a corpse at the scene of an incident, the question arises of establishing the authenticity of death. In this case, if lethargy is suspected, the patient is immediately sent to the hospital.

The question of the danger of burying alive persons in a state of lethargy has long lost its significance, since burial is usually carried out 1-2 days after death, when reliable cadaveric phenomena (signs of decomposition) are already well expressed.

Along with cases of true lethargy, there are also cases of its simulation (usually in order to hide the crime or its consequences). In this case, the person is monitored in the hospital. It is very difficult to simulate the symptoms of lethargy for a long time.

Help with lethargic sleep

The treatment for lethargic sleep is rest, clean air, and vitamin-rich food. If it is impossible to feed such a patient, food can be administered in liquid and semi-liquid form through a tube. Solutions of salts and glucose can be administered intravenously. A person in a state of lethargic sleep requires careful care, otherwise bedsores will begin on the body after lying for a long time, an infection will develop, and the condition will sharply become more complicated.

At the end of December 2009, an Indian man, seriously injured in a traffic accident and declared dead, suddenly “came to life” on the pathologist’s table in a morgue in eastern India.

According to a relative of the victim, on December 25, 30-year-old Susanta Deo was riding a motorcycle and crashed into a tractor trailer. He suffered a head injury and a broken leg and was taken to a nearby hospital in an unconscious state. The doctor on duty decided that the man was dead and sent the body to the morgue. When the pathologist prepared his tools for the autopsy, he was surprised to find that the 30-year-old “dead man” was showing signs of life. After this, Susanta was rushed to the hospital in the district center of Cuttack. The police opened a criminal case against the doctor for negligence.

This is far from the only case of this kind, and sometimes doctors claim that it is not their mistake at all.

July 2, 2009 Ha'aretz reported that an elderly Israeli man "came to life" after an ambulance team issued his death certificate and was about to send his body to the morgue.

Arriving on an urgent call to the apartment of an 84-year-old resident of the city of Ramat Gan, ambulance doctors found him lying on the floor without signs of life. Attempts to resuscitate the old man were considered unsuccessful, and doctors signed official documents declaring his death. However, when the doctors left, the policeman who remained in the apartment noticed that the “deceased” was breathing and moving his hands. By the time the ambulance arrived again, he had already regained consciousness.

August 19, 2008 Reuters reported that the baby, who was born in an Israeli hospital as a result of a forced abortion, showed signs of life after a five-hour stay in the refrigerator.

A girl weighing only 600 grams was born on August 18. Her mother had to have an involuntary abortion due to severe internal bleeding at 23 weeks of pregnancy. Doctors, considering the severely premature baby dead, put him in a refrigerator, where the girl spent at least five hours. Signs of life in the newborn were noticed by her parents, who came to pick her up for burial.

According to doctors, the temperature inside the refrigerator slowed down the child's metabolism, and this helped him survive. The child was admitted to the intensive neonatal care unit.

However, despite the attempts of Israeli doctors to save his life, the baby died.

At the beginning of 2008 A Frenchman who suffered a myocardial infarction and whose cardiologists declared cardiac arrest “came to life” on the operating table when surgeons began to remove his organs for transplantation.

A 45-year-old man, who did not follow the regimen prescribed by doctors, suffered a massive myocardial infarction at the beginning of the year. An ambulance arrived and took him to a nearby hospital. However, when the man arrived at the hospital, his heart was not beating. Doctors decided that it was “technically impossible” to help him.

According to the law, in such cases of cardiac arrest, patients can automatically become organ donors. However, when surgeons began the operation, they found signs of breathing in the potential donor and suspended operations.

In November 2007 A resident of the American city of Frederick (Texas, USA), 21-year-old Zach Dunlap was pronounced dead in a hospital in Wichita Falls (Texas), where he was taken after a car accident. Relatives had already agreed to the use of the young man’s organs for transplantation, but during the farewell ceremony he unexpectedly moved his leg and hand. Then those present pressed Zach's nail and touched his foot with a pocket knife, to which the young man immediately reacted. After the “resurrection,” Zach spent another 48 days in the hospital.

In October 2005 A 73-year-old pensioner from the Italian city of Mantova unexpectedly came to life 35 minutes after doctors declared him dead.

An elderly Italian man was lying in the cardiology department of the Carlo Poma Hospital in Mantova when an echocardiograph indicated that his heart had stopped. All attempts by doctors to resuscitate the man were useless: cardiac massage and artificial ventilation did not produce results. Doctors recorded death. However, suddenly the line on the echocardiograph began to move again: the man was alive. Soon the man, already declared dead, began to move and then began to recover.

As the doctors stated after the test, the equipment worked perfectly and the only plausible explanation is the assumption that a person is able to endure cardiac ischemia for such a long period.

In January 2004 In the northern Indian state of Haryana, an Indian man was brought back to life after spending several hours in a morgue refrigerator.

As SkyNews reported, the man was taken to the morgue by police, who found him lying by the road with injuries. The doctors of the hospital where he was taken, based on the results of the examination, wrote down: “dead at the time of arrival” - and identified the “body” to the morgue immediately after they handed over all the necessary papers to the police.

However, after a few hours, the “deceased” began to move, putting the morgue staff in a state of shock. Morgue workers immediately took him back to the hospital.

In January 2003 79-year-old pensioner Roberto de Simone was taken to the cardiology department of the Cervello Hospital in almost hopeless condition. The patient was immediately connected to cardiac and cerebral activity support systems. Roberto de Simone's heart stopped for two minutes. Doctors attempted to restore the heart's function using adrenaline, but despite all efforts, death was recorded after some time. The doctors decided that the patient had died and handed over his body to his relatives so that they could say goodbye to him before the funeral. De Simone was taken home as if dead.

When everything was ready for the funeral ceremony and the coffin was to be closed, Simone opened his eyes and asked for water. The relatives decided that a “miracle” had happened and called the family doctor. He examined the patient and ordered to take him to the hospital. This time with a diagnosis of pneumology - a serious respiratory disease.

In April 2002 the man “came to life” a few hours after doctors in the Indian city of Lucknow (the capital of the state of Uttar Pradesh) issued his relatives a death certificate.

A resident of one of the villages of the state, 55-year-old Sukhlal was taken to the hospital with a diagnosis of tuberculosis. The prescribed course of treatment did not produce positive results, and one day the doctors had to declare the patient’s death. The patient's son was given a death certificate. When preparations for cremation were completed, the son came to the morgue to pick up his father's body, and then discovered that he was breathing. He immediately called doctors, who felt the “corpse’s” pulse and demanded that his son return the death certificate. Only thanks to the persistence of journalists, the hospital management undertook an internal investigation into this incident. However, the attending physician Mehrotra rejected all doubts about his professionalism; in his opinion, the case of the “revived” Sukhlal was a “miracle” that happened for the first time in his practice.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

It is no coincidence that in almost all countries and among all peoples it is customary to bury the body not immediately after death, but only a few days later. There have been many cases when “dead people” suddenly came to life before the funeral, or, worst of all, right inside the grave...

Imaginary death

Lethargy (from the Greek lethe - “oblivion” and argia - “inaction”) is a largely unexplored painful state similar to sleep. Signs of death have always been considered the cessation of heartbeat and lack of breathing. But during lethargic sleep, all life processes also freeze, and it is quite difficult to distinguish real death from imaginary death (as lethargic sleep is often called) without modern equipment. Therefore, earlier cases of burial of people who did not die, but who fell asleep in a lethargic sleep, took place quite often, and sometimes with famous people.
If now burial alive is already a fantasy, then 100-200 years ago cases of burial of living people were not so uncommon. Very often, gravediggers, digging a fresh grave at ancient burial sites, discovered twisted bodies in half-decayed coffins, from which it was clear that they were trying to get out to freedom. They say that in medieval cemeteries every third grave was such an eerie sight.

Fatal sleeping pill

Helena Blavatsky described strange cases of lethargy: “In 1816 in Brussels, a respected citizen fell into deep lethargy on Sunday morning. On Monday, as his companions prepared to hammer nails into the coffin lid, he sat up in the coffin, rubbed his eyes and demanded coffee and a newspaper. In Moscow, the wife of a wealthy businessman lay in a cataleptic state for seventeen days, during which the authorities made several attempts to bury her; but since decomposition did not occur, the family rejected the ceremony, and after the said period, the life of the supposedly dead woman was restored. In Bergerac in 1842, a patient took sleeping pills, but... did not wake up. They bled him: he did not wake up. Finally he was declared dead and buried. A few days later they remembered to take sleeping pills and dug up the grave. The body was turned over and bore signs of a struggle.”
This is only a small part of such cases - lethargic sleep is actually quite common.

Scary awakening

Many people tried to protect themselves from being buried alive. For example, the famous writer Wilkie Collins left a note at his bedside with a list of measures that should be taken before burying him. But the writer was an educated person and had the concept of lethargic sleep, while many ordinary people did not even think of something like that.
So, in 1838, an incredible incident occurred in England. After the funeral of a respected person, a boy was walking through the cemetery and heard an unclear sound from underground. The frightened child called the adults, who dug up the coffin. When the lid was removed, the shocked witnesses saw that a terrible grimace was frozen on the face of the deceased. His arms were freshly bruised and his shroud was torn. But the man was already actually dead - he died a few minutes before being rescued - from a broken heart, unable to withstand such a terrible awakening to reality.
An even more terrible incident occurred in Germany in 1773. A pregnant woman was buried there. When screams began to be heard from underground, the grave was dug up. But it turned out that it was already too late - the woman died, and moreover, the child who had just been born in the same grave died...

Crying Soul

In the fall of 2002, a misfortune happened in the family of Krasnoyarsk resident Irina Andreevna Maletina - her thirty-year-old son Mikhail unexpectedly died. A strong, athletic guy who never complained about his health, died at night in his sleep. The body was autopsied, but the cause of death could not be determined. The doctor who drew up the death report told Irina Andreevna that her son died of sudden cardiac arrest.
As expected, Mikhail was buried on the third day, a wake was celebrated... And suddenly the next night his mother dreamed of her dead son crying. In the afternoon, Irina Andreevna went to church and lit a candle for the repose of the soul of the newly deceased. However, the crying son continued to appear in her dreams for another week. Maletina turned to one of the priests, who, after listening, said disappointing words that the young man might have been buried alive. It took Irina Andreevna incredible efforts to obtain permission to carry out the exhumation. When the coffin was opened, the grief-stricken woman instantly turned gray with horror. Her beloved son was lying on his side. His clothes, ritual blanket and pillow were torn to shreds. There were numerous abrasions and bruises on the hands of the corpse, which were not present during the funeral. All this eloquently indicated that the man woke up in the grave, and then died for a long time and painfully.
A resident of the city of Bereznyaki near Solikamsk, Elena Ivanovna Duzhkina, recalls how once in her childhood she and a group of children saw a coffin floating from nowhere during the spring flood of the Kama. The waves washed him to the shore. The frightened children called the adults. People opened the coffin and saw with horror a yellowish skeleton dressed in rotten rags. The skeleton lay prone, legs tucked under itself. The entire lid of the coffin, darkened by time, was covered with deep scratches from the inside.

Living Gogol

The most famous such case was the terrible story associated with Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. During his life, several times he fell into a strange, absolutely motionless state, reminiscent of death. But the great writer always quickly came to his senses, although he managed to fairly scare those around him. Gogol knew about this peculiarity of his and, more than anything else, he was afraid that one day he would fall into a deep sleep for a long time and be buried alive. He wrote: “Being in the full presence of memory and common sense, I express here my last will. I bequeath my body not to be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear. I mention this because even during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness came over me, my heart and pulse stopped beating.”
After the writer’s death, they did not listen to his will and buried him as usual - on the third day...
These terrible words were remembered only in 1931, when Gogol was reburied from the Danilov Monastery at the Novodevichy Cemetery. According to eyewitnesses, the lid of the coffin was scratched from the inside, and Gogol's body was in an unnatural position. At the same time, another terrible thing was discovered, which had nothing to do with lethargic dreams and burials alive. Gogol's skeleton was missing... its head. According to rumors, she disappeared in 1909, when the monks of the Danilov Monastery were restoring the writer’s grave. Allegedly, they were persuaded to cut it off for a considerable sum by the collector and rich man Bakhrushin, with whom it remained. This is a wild story, but it is quite possible to believe it, because in 1931, during the excavation of Gogol’s grave, a number of unpleasant events occurred. Famous writers who were present at the reburial literally stole from the coffin “as a souvenir,” some a piece of clothing, some shoes, and some a rib of Gogol...

Call from the other world

Interestingly, in order to protect a person from being buried alive, in many Western countries there is still a bell with a rope in morgues. A person thought to be dead can wake up among the dead, stand up and ring the bell. The servants will immediately come running to his call. This bell and the revival of the dead are often played out in horror films, but such stories almost never happened in reality. But during the autopsy, the “corpses” came to life more than once. In 1964, an autopsy was performed in a New York morgue on a man who died on the street. As soon as the pathologist’s scalpel touched the “dead man’s” stomach, he immediately jumped up. The pathologist himself died of shock and fright on the spot...
Another similar case was described in the Biysk Rabochiy newspaper. An article dated September 1959 told how, during the funeral of an engineer of one of the Biysk factories, while delivering funeral speeches, the deceased suddenly sneezed, opened his eyes, sat up in the coffin and “almost died a second time, seeing the situation in which located". A thorough examination at a local hospital of the man who rose from the grave did not reveal any pathological changes in his body. The same conclusion was given by the Novosibirsk doctors to whom the resurrected engineer was sent.

Ritual burials

However, people do not always find themselves buried alive against their own will. Thus, among some African tribes, peoples of South America, Siberia and the Far North, there is a ritual in which the tribe’s healer buries a relative alive. A number of nationalities perform this ritual for the initiation of boys. In some tribes they use it to treat certain diseases. In the same way, old people or sick people are prepared for the transition to another world.
The “pseudo-funeral” ritual occupies an important place among ministers of shamanic cults. It is believed that by going to the grave alive, the shaman receives the gift of communication with the spirits of the earth, as well as with the souls of deceased ancestors. It’s as if some channels open in his consciousness through which he communicates with worlds unknown to mere mortals.
Naturalist and ethnographer E.S. Bogdanovsky was lucky in 1915 to witness the ritual funeral of a shaman of one of the Kamchatka tribes. In his memoirs, Bogdanovsky writes that before the burial the shaman fasted for three days and did not even drink water. Then the assistants, using a bone drill, made a hole in the crown of the shaman, which was then sealed with beeswax. After this, the shaman’s body was rubbed with incense, wrapped in a bear skin and, accompanied by ritual singing, lowered into a grave built in the center of the family cemetery. A long reed tube was inserted into the shaman's mouth, which was taken out, and his motionless body was covered with earth. A few days later, during which rituals were continuously performed over the grave, the buried shaman was removed from the ground, washed in three running waters and fumigated with incense. On the same day, the village magnificently celebrated the second birth of a respected fellow tribesman, who, having visited the “kingdom of the dead,” took the top step in the hierarchy of servants of the pagan cult...
In recent years, a tradition has emerged of placing charged mobile phones next to the deceased - what if this is not death at all, but a dream, what if a dear person comes to his senses and calls his loved ones - I’m alive, dig me back up... But so far such cases have not happened - in our days, with advanced diagnostic equipment, it is in principle impossible to bury a person alive.
But nevertheless, people do not believe doctors and try to protect themselves from a terrible awakening in the grave. In 2001, a scandalous incident occurred in the United States. Los Angeles resident Joe Barten, terribly afraid of falling into a lethargic sleep, bequeathed ventilation in his coffin, putting food and a telephone in it. And at the same time, his relatives could receive an inheritance only on the condition that they call his grave three times a day. It’s interesting that Barten’s relatives refused to receive the inheritance - they found the process of making calls to the next world too creepy...

Taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive, is one of the most common human phobias. And there are quite good reasons for this. Due to the mistakes of doctors or the illiteracy of ordinary people, such cases occurred quite often before the normal development of medicine, and sometimes happen in our time. This article contains 10 incredible but absolutely real stories of people buried alive who still managed to survive.

Janet Philomel.

The story of a 24-year-old French woman named Janet Philomel is most typical of most such cases. In 1867, she fell ill with cholera and died a few days later, as everyone thought. The girl was given the funeral service by the local priest according to all the rules; her body was placed in a coffin and buried in the cemetery. Nothing unusual.

Strange things began when, a few hours later, the cemetery worker was finishing the burial. Suddenly he heard a knock coming from underground. They began to dig up the coffin, simultaneously sending for a doctor. The doctor who arrived actually discovered a weak heartbeat and breathing in the girl, raised from her own grave. And on her hands there were fresh abrasions received from the fact that she was trying to get out. True, this story ended tragically. A few days later, the girl died for real. Most likely due to cholera. But perhaps also because of the nightmare she experienced. This time the doctors and priests tried to carefully make sure that she was really dead.

Unknown from Sao Paulo.

In 2013, a woman living in Sao Paulo, visiting her family gravestone at the cemetery, witnessed a truly horrifying picture. Nearby, she noticed a man who was desperately trying to get out of the grave. He did this with difficulty. The man had already freed one arm and head by the time local workers arrived to him.

After the unfortunate man was completely dug up, he was taken to the hospital, where it turned out that he was an employee of the city hall. It is not known for certain how it happened that the man was buried alive. It is believed that he was the victim of a fight or attack, after which he was considered dead and buried to get rid of evidence. Relatives claimed that after the incident, the man suffered from mental disorders.

Baby from Dongdong province.

In a remote Chinese village in Dongdong province, there lived a pregnant girl named Lu Xiaoyan. The medical situation in the village was very bad: there were no doctors, the nearest hospital was several kilometers away. Naturally, no one monitored the girl’s pregnancy. Around the fourth month, Lu suddenly felt contractions. Everyone expected the baby to be stillborn. And so it happened: the baby that was born showed no signs of life.

After giving birth, the girl’s husband realized that she would most likely need professional medical help, so he called an ambulance. While Lu was being taken to the nearest hospital by car, her mother was burying the child in a field. However, at the hospital it turned out that the girl was not in her fourth, but in her sixth month of pregnancy, and the doctors, assuming that the child could survive, demanded to bring him. Lu's husband returned, dug up the tiny girl and brought her to the hospital. Surprisingly, the girl managed to get out.

Mike Mainey.

Mike Mainey is a famous Irish bartender who asked to be buried alive to set a kind of world record. In 1968, in London, Mike was placed in a special coffin equipped with a hole through which air entered. With the help of the same hole, food and drink were passed to the man. It's hard to believe, but in total Mike was buried for 61 days. Since then, many have tried to break this record, but no one has succeeded.

Anthony Britton.

Another magician who voluntarily allowed himself to be buried in the ground in order to get out of the grave on his own. However, unlike Mike, he was buried without a coffin, at a standard depth of 2 meters. In addition, his hands were handcuffed. As planned, Anthony was supposed to repeat Houdini's trick, but things didn't go according to plan.

The magician spent almost nine minutes underground. For the rescuers on duty above, this was the extreme threshold for starting active actions. They quickly dug up the poor fellow, who was in a half-dead state. Britton was able to be pumped out. He subsequently said in various interviews that he was unable to complete his stunt because his hands were pinned to the ground. But worst of all, after each exhalation, the earth continued to squeeze his chest more and more, not allowing him to breathe.

Baby from Compton.

Just recently, in November 2015, two women were walking in a park in Compton, a small city in California. Suddenly, while walking, they heard a strange child's cry, coming as if from underground. Frightened, they immediately called the police.

Arriving law enforcement officers dug up a very small child, no more than two days old, under the asphalt of the bicycle path. Fortunately, the police quickly took the little girl to the hospital and her life was saved. Interestingly, the baby was wrapped in a hospital blanket, which allowed detectives to quickly determine when and where she was born, as well as identify the mother. A warrant was immediately issued for her arrest. She is now accused of attempted murder and child endangerment.

Tom Guerin.

The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1849 resulted in a huge number of deaths. Gravediggers in those days had a lot of work, and there wasn’t enough space to bury everyone. They had to bury many people and, naturally, sometimes mistakes happened. Such, for example, as with Tom Guerin, a 13-year-old boy who was mistakenly taken for dead and buried alive.

The boy was declared dead, brought to the cemetery, like many others, and began to be buried, in the process accidentally breaking his legs with shovels. It’s amazing, but the boy not only survived, but also managed to get out of the grave with broken legs. Witnesses claim that Tom Guerin subsequently limped on both legs for the rest of his life.

Child from Tian Dong.

A terrifying story occurred in May 2015 in one of the southern Chinese provinces. A woman who was collecting herbs near the cemetery suddenly heard the barely audible cry of a child. Frightened, she called the police, who discovered a baby buried alive in the cemetery. The baby was quickly taken to the hospital, where he soon recovered.

During the investigation, it turned out that the parents, who did not want to raise a child born with a cleft lip, put the baby in a cardboard box and took it to the cemetery. After several days, the relatives came to the cemetery and, thinking that the child was already dead, buried him at a shallow depth of several centimeters. As a result, the boy spent 8 days underground and survived only because oxygen and water penetrated the layer of mud. According to police, when the boy was dug up, the child was literally coughing up dirty water.

Natalya Pasternak.

A terrible incident occurred in May last year in the city of Tynda. Two local residents, Natalya Pasternak and her friend Valentina Gorodetskaya, traditionally collected birch sap near the city. At this time, a four-year-old bear came out of the forest towards Natalya, who, considering the woman her prey, attacked her.

The bear partially scalped her, left a deep wound in her thigh, and seriously injured her neck. Fortunately, Valentina managed to call rescuers. By the time they arrived, the bear had already buried Natalya, who was in a state of shock, as they usually do with their victims, in order to leave it for later. Rescuers had to shoot the animal. Natalya was dug up and taken to the hospital. Since then, she has undergone many operations, and her recovery is still ongoing.

Essie Dunbar.

30-year-old Essie died in 1915 from a severe attack of epilepsy. At least that's what the doctors said. The girl was declared dead and funeral preparations began. Sister Essie really wanted to be present at the ceremony and categorically forbade the burial to begin until she personally said goodbye to the deceased. The priests delayed the service as much as they could.

The coffin had already been lowered into the grave when Sister Essie finally arrived. She insisted that the coffin be lifted and opened so she could say goodbye to her sister. However, as soon as the coffin lid opened, Essie stood up and smiled at her sister. Those present at the funeral rushed out of there in panic, believing that the girl's spirit had risen from the dead. Even many years later, some townspeople believed that she was a walking corpse. Essie lived until 1962.

What to do if you are buried alive in a coffin September 12th, 2017

Remember, we found out, but there is another horror story.

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?

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.

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.

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 will be the middle of the lid.

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

Imaginary death

Scary awakening

Method of execution

Ritual burials

Sources:

Scientists have managed to develop a technique for reviving people a day after their death.According to resuscitation expert Sam Parnia, if resuscitation is carried out correctly, brain cells do not die five minutes after cardiac arrest, as previously thought.

Today, with the use of special manipulations and the necessary equipment, the human brain is able to live for several more hours after recorded death. This period of time can last up to 72 hours.

According to the specialist, if the patient’s body is cooled to a temperature of 34 to 32 degrees Celsius, he can remain in this state for up to 24 hours. With a decrease in body temperature, the brain uses less oxygen, the formation of toxic substances stops, which, in turn, prevents the death of cells and gives doctors a chance to “pull a person out of the other world.”
At the same time, Parnia especially notes that for the method to work successfully, it is necessary to strictly perform all resuscitation procedures, because even one small mistake can lead to death or brain damage.
The doctor also recalled cases of “resurrection” in modern medicine. Thus, doctors were able to bring English Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba back to life. The athlete lost consciousness on March 17, 2012 in an FA Cup match with Tottenham, his heart didn't beat for about 1.5 hours.

July 2, 2009 Ha'aretz reported that an elderly Israeli man "came to life" after an ambulance team issued his death certificate and was about to send his body to the morgue.
Arriving on an urgent call to the apartment of an 84-year-old resident of the city of Ramat Gan, ambulance doctors found him lying on the floor without signs of life. Attempts to resuscitate the old man were considered unsuccessful, and doctors signed official documents declaring his death. However, when the doctors left, the policeman who remained in the apartment noticed that the “deceased” was breathing and moving his hands. By the time the ambulance arrived again, he had already regained consciousness.

August 19, 2008 Reuters reported that the baby, who was born in an Israeli hospital as a result of a forced abortion, showed signs of life after a five-hour stay in the refrigerator.
A girl weighing only 600 grams was born on August 18. Her mother had to have an involuntary abortion due to severe internal bleeding at 23 weeks of pregnancy. Doctors, considering the severely premature baby dead, put him in a refrigerator, where the girl spent at least five hours. Signs of life in the newborn were noticed by her parents, who came to pick her up for burial.
According to doctors, the temperature inside the refrigerator slowed down the child's metabolism, and this helped him survive. The child was admitted to the intensive neonatal care unit.

IN early 2008A Frenchman who suffered a myocardial infarction and whose cardiologists declared cardiac arrest “came to life” on the operating table when surgeons began to remove his organs for transplantation.
A 45-year-old man, who did not follow the regimen prescribed by doctors, suffered a massive myocardial infarction at the beginning of the year. An ambulance arrived and took him to a nearby hospital. However, when the man arrived at the hospital, his heart was not beating. Doctors decided that it was “technically impossible” to help him.
According to the law, in such cases of cardiac arrest, patients can automatically become organ donors. However, when surgeons began the operation, they found signs of breathing in the potential donor and suspended operations.

In November 2007A resident of the American city of Frederick (Texas, USA), 21-year-old Zach Dunlap was pronounced dead in a hospital in Wichita Falls (Texas), where he was taken after a car accident. Relatives had already agreed to the use of the young man’s organs for transplantation, but during the farewell ceremony he unexpectedly moved his leg and hand. Then those present pressed Zach's nail and touched his foot with a pocket knife, to which the young man immediately reacted. After the “resurrection,” Zach spent another 48 days in the hospital.

In October 2005A 73-year-old pensioner from the Italian city of Mantova unexpectedly came to life 35 minutes after doctors declared him dead.
An elderly Italian man was lying in the cardiology department of the Carlo Poma Hospital in Mantova when an echocardiograph indicated that his heart had stopped. All attempts by doctors to resuscitate the man were useless: cardiac massage and artificial ventilation did not produce results. Doctors recorded death. However, suddenly the line on the echocardiograph began to move again: the man was alive. Soon the man, already declared dead, began to move and then began to recover.
As the doctors stated after the test, the equipment worked perfectly and the only plausible explanation is the assumption that a person is able to endure cardiac ischemia for such a long period.

In January 2004In the northern Indian state of Haryana, an Indian man was brought back to life after spending several hours in a morgue refrigerator.
The man was taken to the morgue by police, who found him lying by the road with injuries. The doctors of the hospital where he was taken, based on the results of the examination, wrote down: “dead at the time of arrival” - and identified the “body” to the morgue immediately after they handed over all the necessary papers to the police.
However, after a few hours, the “deceased” began to move, leaving the morgue staff in a state of shock. Morgue workers immediately took him back to the hospital.

January 5, 2004Reuters reported that a funeral director in New Mexico found Felipe Padilla, who had been pronounced dead at the hospital, breathing. The man “came to life” just minutes before Padilla’s body was to be embalmed. Felipe Padilla, 94, was taken to the same hospital where he was previously pronounced dead. However, a few hours later the old man died in the hospital.

In January 200379-year-old pensioner Roberto de Simone was taken to the cardiology department of the Cervello Hospital in almost hopeless condition. The patient was immediately connected to cardiac and cerebral activity support systems. Roberto de Simone's heart stopped for two minutes. Doctors attempted to restore the heart's function using adrenaline, but despite all efforts, death was recorded after some time. The doctors decided that the patient had died and handed over his body to his relatives so that they could say goodbye to him before the funeral. De Simone was taken home as if dead.
When everything was ready for the funeral ceremony and the coffin was to be closed, Simone opened his eyes and asked for water. The relatives decided that a “miracle” had happened and called the family doctor. He examined the patient and ordered to take him to the hospital. This time with a diagnosis of pneumology - a serious respiratory disease.

In April 2002 the man “came to life” a few hours after doctors in the Indian city of Lucknow (the capital of the state of Uttar Pradesh) issued his relatives a death certificate.
A resident of one of the villages of the state, 55-year-old Sukhlal was taken to the hospital with a diagnosis of tuberculosis. The prescribed course of treatment did not produce positive results, and one day the doctors had to declare the patient’s death. The patient's son was given a death certificate. When preparations for cremation were completed, the son came to the morgue to pick up his father's body, and then discovered that he was breathing. He immediately called doctors, who felt the “corpse’s” pulse and demanded that his son return the death certificate. Only thanks to the persistence of journalists, the hospital management undertook an internal investigation into this incident. However, the attending physician Mehrotra rejected all doubts about his professionalism; in his opinion, the case of the “revived” Sukhlal was a “miracle” that happened for the first time in his practice.
This is only a small part of the “miraculous” resurrection.

Incredible facts

Real life is sometimes scarier than fiction.

And some horrific stories of premature funerals are even more chilling than the stories of Edgar Allan Poe.

In the late 1800s, the American city of Pikeville, in the state of Kentucky, was shocked by an unknown disease, and the most tragic case occurred with Octavia Smith Hatcher.

After her little son passed away in January 1891, Octavia was overcome by depression, she did not get out of bed, became very ill and fell into a coma. On May 2 of that year, she was declared dead of unknown causes.

Embalming was not practiced then, so the woman was quickly buried in a local cemetery due to the sweltering heat. Just a week after her funeral, many of the townspeople were stricken with the same disease, which also resulted in them falling into a coma, the only difference being that after a while they woke up.

Octavia's husband began to fear the worst and worried that he had buried his wife alive. He ordered the exhumation of her body, and, as it turned out, worst fears confirmed.

The linings on the inside of the coffin were scratched, the woman’s nails were broken and bloody, and the stamp of horror was forever frozen on her face. She died after being buried alive.

Octavia was reburied, and her husband erected a grave over her grave very majestic monument, which still stands today. It was later suggested that the mysterious illness was caused by the tsetse fly, an African insect that can cause sleeping sickness.

Buried alive people

9. Mina El Houari

When a person goes on a first date, he always thinks about how it will end. Many people face an unexpected ending to a date, but hardly anyone expects to be buried alive after dessert.

One of these terrifying stories happened in May 2014, when 25-year-old French woman Mina El Houary communicated with a potential groom on the Internet for several months, before deciding to travel to Morocco to meet him.

On May 19, she checked into a hotel room in Fez, Morocco, to go on her first real date with the man of her dreams, but she was not destined to leave the hotel.

Mina met a man in person, they spent a wonderful evening together, at the end of which she collapsed dead on the floor. Instead of calling the police or ambulance, the man thought that Mina died and decided to bury her in his garden..

Everything would be fine, but Mina didn’t actually die. As often happens with people suffering from diabetes, Mina fell into a diabetic coma and was buried alive. Several days passed before the girl's family reported her missing and flew to Morocco to try to find her.

The Moroccan police managed to find this poor fellow. Before discovering the grave in the yard, they found dirty clothes and the shovel with which he buried the girl in his house. The man confessed to the crime and was charged with murder.

8. Mrs. Boger

In July 1893, farmer Charles Boger and his wife were living in Whitehaven, Pennsylvania, when Mrs. Boger died suddenly from an unknown cause. Doctors confirmed that the woman was dead and she was buried.

This should have been the end of the story, but some time after her death, a friend told Charles that before meeting him his wife suffered from bouts of hysteria and may not have died.

The very thought that he could bury his wife alive haunted Charles until he himself fell into hysterics.

The man could not live with the thought that his wife was dying in a coffin and, with the help of his friends, exhumed his wife’s body to confirm or refute his fears. What he discovered shocked him.

Mrs. Boger's body was turned over. Her clothes were torn, the glass lid of the coffin was broken, and fragments scattered all over her body. The woman's skin was bloody and covered with wounds, and there were no fingers at all.

It was assumed that she chewed them off in a hysterical fit when she tried to free herself. No one knows what happened to Charles after the terrible discovery.

Stories of those buried alive

7. Angelo Hays

Some of the worst stories of being buried alive are not so horrific because the victim had a miraculous escape.

Such was the case with Angelo Hayes. In 1937, Angelo was an ordinary 19-year-old guy living in St. Quentin de Chalets, France. One day Angelo was riding his motorcycle, lost control and hit a brick wall.

Without hesitation, the boy was declared dead and buried three days after the accident. In the neighboring city of Bordeaux, an insurance company became suspicious after learning that Angelo's father had recently insured his son's life for 200,000 francs, so an inspector went to the scene.

The inspector requested the exhumation of Angelo's body two days after the funeral to confirm the cause of death, but was met with a complete surprise. The boy wasn't really dead!

When the doctor took off the guy’s funeral clothes, his body was still warm and his heart was barely beating. He was immediately taken to the hospital, where Angelo underwent several more surgeries and general rehabilitation before making a full recovery.

During all this he was unconscious because he received severe head injury. After recovery, the guy began producing coffins from which one could escape in case of premature burial. He toured with his invention and became something of a celebrity in France.

6. Mr. Cornish

Cornish was the beloved mayor of Bath, who died of fever some 80 years before Snart published his work.

As was customary at the time, the body was buried fairly quickly after death was declared. The gravedigger was almost half finished with his work when he I decided to take a break and have a drink with friends passing by.

He walked away from the grave to talk with the visitors, when suddenly they all heard suffocating groans coming from the grave of the half-buried Mr. Cornish.

The gravedigger realized that he had buried a man alive and tried to save him while there was still oxygen in the coffin. But by the time they had scattered all the dirt and managed to remove the coffin lid, it was already too late, because Cornish died with his elbows and knees scratched until they bled.

This story so frightened Cornish's older half-sister that she asked her relatives to cut off her head after her death so that she would not suffer the same fate.

People buried alive

5. Surviving 6-year-old child

Burying a person alive is terrible, but it becomes unimaginably scary when a child becomes the victim of such a catastrophe. In August 2014, this is exactly what happened to a six-year-old girl, a resident of the Indian village of Uttar Pradesh.

According to the girl's uncle, Alok Awasthi, a couple who lived nearby told her that the mother had asked them to take the baby to a neighboring village. The girl agreed to go with them, but when they reached the sugar cane field, the couple decided for an unknown reason strangle the girl and bury her on the spot.

Luckily, some people working in the field saw the couple leave without the girl. They found her unconscious in a hastily made shallow grave right in the middle of a field.

Caring people managed to deliver the baby to the hospital at the very last moment, and when the girl came to her senses, she was able to tell about her kidnappers.

The girl does not remember that she was buried alive. Police do not know the reasons why the couple decided to kill the girl, and the suspects have not yet been found.

Luckily, the story did not end tragically.

4. Buried alive by choice

As long as a person lives, there will be challenges to fate. Nowadays there are even textbooks that tell you what to do if you find yourself buried alive and how to avoid death.

Moreover, people go so far that they voluntarily bury themselves in order to play with death. In 2011, a 35-year-old resident of Russia did just that, and, unfortunately, died tragically.