The fear of… coming back to life in the grave

History records that many people were buried before they really died. The poor victims died unjustly because they were buried alive.

When they woke up in the grave, it was too late. The end result of a series of those mistakes, often disastrous.

Burying the victim alive to death, a torture reminiscent of medieval brutality or barbarians, cold-blooded murderers. But you will probably be surprised to know that, even in daily life, people have had to witness many similar incidents simply because of… mistake. Due to misunderstanding, many victims were buried before they actually died. Subsequent accidental discoveries have helped the living realize their fatal mistake, and visualize the “real” death of their loved ones.

The young girl Mary Norah Best , a French woman, followed her mother to India and contracted cholera that was raging here. After a few short days of battling illness, this 17-year-old girl was declared dead by doctors, when her pulse could not be found. Just a few hours later, Mary was quickly buried in the cemetery for the French in the city of Calcutta (India). Her family has a crypt here and her coffin is placed in it rather than buried deep underground in the usual way. It’s 1871, and cholera is killing thousands of Indians every day. The victims were all buried very quickly after being identified as dead, to prevent the transmission of pathogens.

But ten years later, when the crypt was opened to accept the coffin of a recently deceased uncle of Mary, those present witnessed a horrifying sight: Mary’s coffin lid, which had already been crucified sure, now overturned and lying on the floor of the crypt. The girl’s skeleton is in the position of half still in the coffin, half leaning out. The skull hit the ground, and on the right side of the skull there was a large crack. The bones of the fingers were bent as if they were holding on to something, and the clothes of the memorial were torn.

Mary was not dead when her relatives put her in a coffin and took her to the crypt. Cholera victims often fell into a coma, and so did Mary. The doctor and family mistakenly thought she was dead. This poor girl was “buried alive”. Hours or days later, the girl woke up and to her horror found herself in a covered coffin. From the deep catacombs, her screams did not reach anyone’s ears. While panicking and suffocating, she ripped off her clothes and tried to save herself by trying to push open the lid of the coffin. When the plank came loose, Mary leaned out, but by this time she was also completely exhausted. Her head was hit hard on the ground. Perhaps this poor girl died immediately after that severe trauma, or barely survived for a while before officially dying. What happened in the catacombs is envisioned as such. An unjust death full of pain and horror.

The tragedy that happened to Mary, unfortunately, was not unique. Until the 20th century, a reliable method of determining death was to apply a hot bread to the soles of the feet to test the dying person’s reaction. If they don’t make a move, they’re dead and the living begin to prepare for a funeral. In a book published in 1905, two British doctors compiled such “buried alive” cases around the world, based on newspapers from many countries.

In 1887, in France, a young man was buried. Immediately after lowering the grave, the graves suddenly heard a knock from under the coffin lid. Fearing that this would create a panic among the mourners, the workers carried out the burial as usual, as they thought it was just an illusion. But when the victim’s relatives began to drop the first lumps of dirt on the lid of the coffin, the sound repeated so clearly that all present could hear. But instead of immediately opening the coffin, the crowd waited for a government official to check it out, because trespassing on a dead person’s coffin is a felony. When the government representative arrived and ordered the coffin to be opened, it was too late: the man had died of suffocation shortly before. The victim’s whole body contorted, fingernails and toenails were torn from scratching the wood, and horror was still present on her face.

The fear of... coming back to life in the grave
No one wants to wake up in a cold coffin buried deep underground. (Illustration).

In the past, when such incidents happened, it was often assumed that grave robbers had opened the coffin lid and caused a mess of the victim’s body. But as forensic technology develops, it is not difficult to find the true cause of death for these victims. They died, simply because they were buried while still alive. Determining whether death has come to the victim or not is based only on very rudimentary methods, such as checking the heartbeat or breathing, which is the reason why many people go from “fake death” to real death. .

Although the most recent recorded cases of “buried alive” are centuries old, the obsession with such horrible death still makes modern people worry a lot about the last moments of their lives. me. Some, because they were so scared by this concern, left wills… too difficult for their children and grandchildren: to cut their throats, or pierce their hearts before being buried, so that even if they were not really dead, they would still die. will… die. No one wants to wake up in a cold coffin buried deep underground.

Grasping this mentality, a Belgian carpenter named Michel de Karnicé-Karnicki seized the opportunity to get rich when he invented an alarm device from the coffin . It looks like a glass ball, placed on the chest of the corpse. If the corpse’s chest rises and falls – a sign that the person is still breathing, that is not dead – the ball will roll, triggering a bell inside it to sound an alarm.

A funeral company also introduced a “high-tech” coffin model that allows people inside to press an emergency alarm button if they wake up. Cell phone waves are used to transmit signals to the ground. The interactive devices installed above this grave will activate dozens of other rescue devices such as calling the victim’s family number, police number … to report the news, and the surrounding flags at the same time. around the grave will stand up, with a built-in speaker system that emits a cry for help… All to attract those present in the cemetery area, to provide the earliest possible chance of rescue for the person being buried. living.

Currently, in Germany, there is an organization that is campaigning for the “slow burial” movement. According to the organization’s propaganda, relatives of those presumed dead should not bury their loved ones earlier than 48 hours after their last sign of life was recorded. This will help avoid the disaster of burying your loved one alive due to the confusion of death.