Incredible Facts
Real life is sometimes worse than fiction.
And some of the horrifying stories of premature burials chill the blood even more than those of Edgar Allan Poe.
In the late 1800s, the American city of Pikeville, in Kentucky, was shaken by an unknown disease, and the most tragic case happened precisely 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 the same year, she was declared dead of an unknown cause.
Embalming was not practiced then, so the woman was quickly buried in the 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 caused them to fall into a coma, with 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 living wife. He ordered the exhumation of her body, and, as it turned out, worst fears confirmed.
The lining on the inside of the coffin was scratched, the woman's nails were broken and bloody, and the stamp of horror was forever frozen on her face. She died being buried alive.
Octavia was reburied, and her husband erected over her grave very majestic monument which is still standing today. It was later suggested that the mysterious illness was caused by the tsetse fly, an African insect that can cause sleeping sickness.
people buried alive
9 Mina El Houari
When a person goes on a first date, he always thinks about how it will end. Many face an unexpected end to a date, but hardly anyone expects to be buried alive after dessert.
One such horrifying story happened in May 2014, when 25-year-old Frenchwoman Mina El Houary talked 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 check out of the hotel.
Mina met a man live, they spent a wonderful evening together, at the end of which she collapsed dead on the floor. Instead of calling the police or an ambulance, the man thought that Mina died, and decided to bury her, burying her in his garden.
Everything would be fine, but Mina actually did not die. As is often the case with people with diabetes, Mina fell into a diabetic coma and was buried alive. Several days passed before the girl's family reported missing and flew to Morocco to try to find her.
The Moroccan police managed to find this poor fellow. Before the discovery of the grave in the yard, they brought dirty clothes and a shovel, which he used to bury the girl, in his house. The man confessed to the crime and was charged with murder.
8. Mrs. Boger (Mrs. Boger)
In July 1893, farmer Charles Boger and his wife were living in Whitehaven, Pennsylvania, when Mrs. Boger died suddenly of an unknown cause. Doctors confirmed that the woman was dead and she was buried.
This was supposed to be the end of the story, but some time after her death, a friend told Charles that before meeting him his wife suffered from hysteria and may not have died.
The very idea 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 shattered, and pieces were scattered all over her body. The woman's skin was bloodied and covered with wounds, and there were no fingers at all.
She was supposed to have gnawed them in a fit of hysteria as 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 most scary stories about being buried alive are not so terrible, because the victim miraculously managed to escape.
Such was the case with Angelo Hayes. In 1937, Angelo was an ordinary 19-year-old boy living in St. Quentin de Chalet, 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 nearby 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, however, he was faced with an absolute surprise. The boy wasn't actually dead!
When the doctor removed the funeral clothes from the guy, 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 fully recovering.
During all this, he was in an unconscious state, because he received severe head injury. After recovery, the guy began to release coffins, from which one could get out in case of premature burial. He toured with his invention and became somewhat of a celebrity in France.
6. Mr. Cornish (Mr. Cornish)
Cornish was the beloved mayor of Bath, who died of a fever about 80 years before Snart published his work.
As was customary at the time, the body was buried fairly quickly after the declaration of death. The gravedigger was almost halfway done with his work when he I decided to take a break and have a drink with passing acquaintances.
He moved away from the grave to talk to the visitors, when suddenly they all heard choking groans from the grave of the half-buried Mr. Cornish.
The gravedigger realized that he had buried the 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 lid of the coffin, it was already too late, because Cornish died, bleeding his elbows and knees.
This story frightened Cornish's older half-sister so much 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 Survivor 6 year old
Burying a person alive is terrible, but it becomes unimaginably scary when a child becomes a 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 her mother asked them to take the baby to a nearby village. The girl agreed to go with them, but when they reached the sugarcane field, the couple decided for some unknown reason strangle the girl and bury her on the spot.
Fortunately, some people working in the field saw the couple walk out without the girl. They found her unconscious in a shallow, hastily made grave right in the middle of the field.
At the very last moment, caring people managed to deliver the baby to the hospital, 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. The police are not aware of the reasons why the couple decided to kill the girl, and no suspects have yet been found.
Luckily, the story didn't end tragically.
4. Buried alive by choice
As long as a person is alive, fate will be challenged. Nowadays, there are even textbooks that tell you what to do if you are buried alive and how to avoid death.
Moreover, people go so far as to 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.
An amazing story in Yekaterinburg. The man whom his relatives saw off on his last journey, arranging a magnificent funeral and commemoration, returned
They buried the whole yard. Someone took pictures. He turned out to be alive. Now he watches and listens to his life story.
“We arrived, they remembered. And here you are! Some time passes. They even managed to remember 9 days. But it didn’t get to 40. And this comrade appears,” says neighbor Angelina Kochetova.
At the end of April, Alexei disappeared. Two days later, a badly burned body was found near the village. And his relatives recognized Alexei in him. He talks about everything with a smile. Apparently, by virtue of a cheerful disposition. There was a case there - he received 150 hours of forced labor, but did not work. Administrative arrest.
“Open, he says, the door, otherwise we’ll break the door down. Well, I opened it. He comes in, get ready, says, let’s go. I say:“ What happened, why did they take me, where? - says Alexey Semyonov.
Alexei knew. They were taken to a temporary detention facility. But no one warned the relatives. And they first lost him, and then buried him. “They took me to the isolation ward. I say there: “I need to call.” They didn’t let me call,” says Aleksey Semyonov.
IN telephone conversation employees of the Penitentiary Service assured: Aleksey could have called on the very first day. But either he forgot, or he was not afraid that he would upset his relatives. Citizen Semyonov nevertheless exercised his right to one call. Unofficially, already out of the cell, in a week.
“I called my wife. I call, and she says that they were buried. I sat down a little. She hung up: “I don’t believe it’s you who are calling,” recalls Alexei Semyonov.
Aleksey was released from the isolation ward on the 16th day. Rushed home. I met my wife and mother-in-law on the street. “My wife’s legs gave way. I say: “Calm down, it’s me, everything is fine. I'm alive, everything's fine. "We went home, she ran and ran, that it was not me. Then in the evening she went to bed - she seemed to believe," says Alexei Semenov.
Now he will have to convince the state authorities that he is alive. Restore passport, other documents. Now Alexei has only a certificate of his death in his hands. Cancellation will need to be through the court. And relatives want to return the money - 30 thousand for someone else's funeral.
“I have fears that no one will compensate for the costs of the funeral, because the guilt of the person must be established. And it turns out that there is no guilty person as such. No one forced the relatives to identify this person as their own,” said lawyer Alexei Selivanov.
By the way, now it's up to the police to find out who was buried instead of Alexei Semyonov. He himself went to someone else's grave. He stood for a moment, paused, and unscrewed his photograph.
19-year-old Angelo Hays died tragically in a motorcycle accident in 1937. Or rather, everyone thought so. He hit the brick wall head first. The insurance agent had some doubts about the death of a young motorcyclist. Two days after the funeral, the young man's body was exhumed.
Angelo was alive. He fell into a coma - this is what helped him survive the monstrous ordeal. The body uses less oxygen. After rehabilitation, Hayes told the story of his imprisonment in a coffin. He became a French celebrity and even invented a special coffin equipped with a radio transmitter, a supply of food, a library and a chemical toilet in case someone repeats his fate.
Woke up in the morgue
Popular
In 1993, Sipho William Mdletshe and his fiancée were involved in a horrendous car accident. His injuries were so severe that he was mistaken for dead, taken to the Johannesburg morgue and placed in a metal container to await burial.
The man woke up two days later and found himself locked in the dark. His screams attracted the attention of the staff, and the man was released.
Relations with the bride could not be restored - she was convinced that her ex-fiance was now a zombie and was pursuing her.
Old lady in a body bag
In 1994, 86-year-old Mildred Clarke was found in her living room. She wasn't breathing and her heart wasn't beating. The old woman was placed in a body bag, planning to deliver the body to the morgue.
She woke up 90 minutes later, shocking and scaring the mortuary staff into hiccups. The woman lived another week before truly dying. We believe that this time the doctors spent more time checking.
Baby spent 8 days underground
In 2015, a couple in China had a baby with a cleft palate. The guy and the girl were not ready for a child "with problems", they panicked and decided to get rid of the unwanted child in any way. So, they put him in a cardboard box and buried him in a shallow grave in the cemetery.
Lu Fenglian was picking herbs in the vicinity of the cemetery and heard a cry coming from the ground. By that time, eight days had passed. She dug up the grave and found a baby there, who survived only because the cardboard let air and water through. Unfortunately, due to lack of evidence, the couple could not be arrested - the baby's parents argued that their own parents wanted to kill their son. No one believed, but it was not possible to prove the involvement of the parents.
The official got out of the grave
A woman visiting the graves of her relatives in 2013 in a small Brazilian town suddenly saw a man ... who was getting out of the grave. His head and arms were free, but he couldn't pull his lower body out of the ground. A witness to the beginning of the zombie apocalypse brought workers to help the man free himself. It turned out to be an employee of the city council.
Before burying the poor fellow, he was severely beaten, so that he did not even remember how he was buried (probably for the better).
Record: 61 days underground
In 1968, Mike Meaney broke the world record set by the American Digger O'Dell (who stayed underground for 45 days). Mini allowed himself to be buried in a coffin, which had air holes with access to food and water, as well as a telephone.
After 61 days, Mini emerged from the ground exhausted, but in good physical shape.
The half-educated wizard almost died
British "wizard" Anthony Britton (Antony Britton) presumptuously declared that he was able to repeat the feat of Harry Houdini, but instead of a miraculous rescue, he almost died right underground. Britton insisted that he be handcuffed and buried in damp loose earth.
Despite careful preparation, which took 14 months, Britton was not ready for the real weight of the earth. “I almost died,” said Houdini, “I was literally seconds away from death. It was scary. The pressure of the soil literally hit me. Despite the fact that I found the air bag, the earth kept falling and falling on me. I almost passed out and couldn't do anything."
Indian girl buried in the field
In 2014, in northern India, a couple asked their neighbors to take their little daughter to a fair where she really wanted to go. Instead, she ended up in a grave. The neighbors took the baby to the field, where they dug a hole, and threw the girl into it.
Fortunately, several people noticed the brawl and when the man and woman emerged from the sugar cane without the child, the witnesses were frightened and hurried to check where the baby had gone.
Fortunately, the girl almost immediately lost consciousness and did not remember anything about the tragedy.
Taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive, is one of the most common human phobias. And there are good enough reasons for that. Due to the error of doctors or the illiteracy of the townsfolk, such cases occurred quite often before the normal development of medicine, and sometimes happen in our time. In this article, 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 of these cases. In 1867 she fell ill with cholera and died a few days later, as everyone around thought. The girl was, according to all the rules, reprimanded by the local priest, her body was laid in a coffin and buried in the cemetery. Nothing unusual.
The strangeness began when, a few hours later, a cemetery worker was finishing the burial. Suddenly, he heard a knock coming from the ground. They began to dig out the coffin, sending for a doctor along the way. The medic who appeared really found a weak heartbeat and breathing in a girl raised from her own grave. And on her hands were fresh bruises received from the fact that she was trying to get out. True, this story ended tragically. A few days later, the girl still died for real. Most likely due to cholera. But, perhaps, because of the nightmare she experienced. This time, doctors and priests tried to make sure that she was really dead.
Unknown from Sao Paulo.
In 2013, a woman living in Sao Paulo, having come to the cemetery to her family tombstone, witnessed a truly horrific 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.
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 mayor's office. How it happened that the man was buried alive is not known for certain. It is assumed that he was the victim of a fight or attack, after which he was presumed dead and buried to get rid of the 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. It was very bad with medicine in the village: there were no doctors of their own, the nearest hospital was a few kilometers away. Naturally, no one followed the girl's pregnancy. Around the fourth month, Lou suddenly felt contractions. Everyone expected the baby to be born dead. And so it happened: the baby who was born showed no signs of life.
After the birth, the girl's husband realized that she would most likely need professional medical attention, so he called an ambulance. While Lou was being driven by car to the nearest hospital, her mother was burying her baby in a field. However, in the hospital it turned out that the girl was not on the fourth, but on the 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 independently get out of the grave. 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 everything did not go according to plan.
The magician spent almost nine minutes underground. For the rescuers on duty from above, this was the extreme threshold for the start of active operations. They quickly dug up the poor fellow, who was in a half-dead state. Britton managed to pump out. Subsequently, in various interviews, he said that he could not complete his trick because his hands were pressed against the ground. But worst of all, after each exhalation, the earth continued to squeeze his chest more and more, preventing him from breathing.
Compton baby.
Most recently, in November 2015, two women were walking in the park of Compton, a small town in California. Suddenly, during a walk, they heard a strange baby crying, as if coming from under the ground. Frightened, they immediately called the police.
Arriving law enforcement officers dug out a very small child under the asphalt of the bicycle path, no more than two days old. 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 to establish the identity of the mother. A warrant was issued for her arrest immediately. Now she is accused of attempted murder and leaving a child in danger.
Tom Guerin.
The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1849 resulted in a huge number of deaths. The gravediggers in those days had a lot of work, there was not enough space to bury everyone. They had to bury many and, of course, 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 later Tom Guerin limped on both legs for the rest of his life.
A child from Tien Dong.
Terrifying story occurred in May 2015 in one of the southern Chinese provinces. A woman gathering herbs near the cemetery suddenly heard a barely audible cry of a child. Frightened, she called the police, who found 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 a few 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 due to the fact that oxygen and water penetrated through a layer of dirt. According to police, when the boy was dug up, the child was literally coughing up dirty water.
Natalia 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 to 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 she-bear had already buried the shocked Natalia, as they usually do with their victims, to leave for later. Rescuers had to shoot the animal. Natalya was dug up and taken to the hospital. Since then, she has undergone many surgeries and her recovery is still ongoing.
Essie Dunbar.
Essie died at the age of 30 in 1915 from a severe attack of epilepsy. At least that's what the doctors said. The girl was declared dead and preparations for the funeral began. Sister Essie really wanted to be present at the ceremony and categorically forbade starting the burial until she personally said goodbye to the deceased. The priests dragged out the service as soon 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 that she could say goodbye to her sister. However, as soon as the lid of the coffin opened, Essie stood up and smiled at her sister. Those present at the funeral rushed out of there in a panic, believing that the spirit of the girl had risen from the dead. Even many years later, some townspeople believed that she was a walking corpse. Essie lived until 1962.
Imagine for a moment a terrible situation in which you wake up in a coffin a couple of meters underground. You are there in complete darkness, where in the silence of the grave, choking with fear and lack of air, you scream in horror, but no one will hear the screams. Buried alive, a phenomenon known as premature burial, seems to be a terrible thing that can happen to a person.
The fear of being buried alive and waking up in a coffin is called taphophobia. In our time - this is an extremely exceptional case (if there are any at all), but the society of previous eras turned the prospect of being alive into the grave into a large and popular wave of horror. And there was reason for people to be afraid.
Before standard medical procedures came into being, some people were mistakenly considered dead. They were probably in a coma or lethargic sleep, and were buried while still alive. Later, this frightening fact was discovered for various reasons for the exhumation of the body.
BURIED ALIVE ATTEMPTED TO LEAVE THE GRAVE.
Probably the first recorded episode is the Scottish philosopher John Duns Scotus (1266-1308). At some point after his death, the grave was opened, and people shied away in fright when they saw the corpse halfway out of the coffin.
The hands of the dead man were bloody from trying to escape from the place of eternal rest (by the way, such stories gave rise to rumors about). The philosopher did not have enough air to reach the surface and return to the world of the living.
Bloody fingers are a common sign of those buried alive. Often, when coffins were opened after someone's "death", the body was found in a twisted position with scratches all over the coffin, as well as broken nails in an unsuccessful attempt to escape from the grave.
However, not everyone buried alive was an accidental mistake. For example, placing living people in a grave was a savage method of execution in China and the Khmer Rouge.
One legend says that in the 6th century, a monk now known as Saint Oran volunteered to be buried alive as a sacrifice to ensure the successful construction of a church on the island of Iona off the Scottish coast.
The funeral was over, and after a while the coffin was taken out of the grave, releasing the barely alive Oran. The distraught monk delivered sad news to the entire Christian community: there was no hell or heaven in the afterlife.
SPECIAL COFFINS FROM TAPHOPHOBIA.
Fear is a good commodity, the businessmen decided, and taking advantage of their phobia, they brought special coffins to the market. The concept of a "safe coffin" was developed to assuage the fear of being buried alive. Many expensive and "expressive" coffin designs with bells appeared on the market.
In 1791, a certain minister was buried in a coffin with a glass window, which allowed the cemetery caretaker to check and see that the minister was not asking to go home. Another design consisted of a coffin with air pipes and keys to the coffin and tomb in case the revived person needed to get out of the grave.
An 18th-century coffin had a string that could be used to ring a bell or raise a flag above the ground if the buried person ended up in the grave by accident.
Coffins with rescue tools were significantly improved in the 1990s.For example, a patent was presented for the construction of a coffin with alarms, lighting and medical equipment. The marvelous design should keep the man alive in good comfort while the body is exhumed. True, there were no reports of the buried using a secure coffin.
The topic of premature burial is not limited to medical or commercial activities. As a result of widespread fear, the story of Edgar Allan Poe appeared in 1844. The author's story was about a man suffering from deep taphophobia as a result of a cataleptic state. He was worried that people would consider him dead during one of the attacks and bury the unfortunate man alive.
The fear of being buried alive had a profound effect on society. There are many films with those who wake up in the grave. Some have reflected Edgar's ideas on this subject. Even today, reading 100-year-old works sends shivers down your spine when you read detailed descriptions unfortunate victims, desperately trying to find a way out of the coffins.
CASES OF THE BURNED ALIVE.
For the next three people, a safe coffin could definitely be of great use. This real stories people buried alive who woke up in their graves. True, only one of them was lucky to return to people
Angelo Hayes- a famous French inventor and lover of driving a motorcycle, spent two days in the grave, being the living dead (in 1937). Angelo was thrown off his motorcycle upon hitting a curb and hit his head hard on a brick wall.
At the age of 19, he was declared dead from a massive head injury. His face was so disfigured that the parents could not see their son. The Doctor declared Angelo Hayes dead, and thus he was buried.
However, there was a problem insurance policy, and agents of the insurance company, having some suspicions, requested the exhumation of the body two days after the funeral. As soon as the body was exhumed and freed from burial clothes, Hayes was found warm with a weak heartbeat. After a miraculous "resurrection" and a full recovery, Angelo became a celebrity in France, with whom people came from all over the country to talk.
Virginia MacDonald - New York (case 1851)
After a long illness, Virginia MacDonald succumbed to her illness and passed away quietly. She was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. However, Virginia's mother insisted that her daughter was not dead. Relatives tried to comfort the mother and urged her to come to terms with the loss, but the woman was firm in her conviction.
Mary Nora - Calcutta (17th century).
Seventeen-year-old Mary Nora Best succumbed to a cholera outbreak. Due to the heat and the spread of the disease, the family decided to bury the deceased girl quickly. The doctor signed the death certificate, and the relatives laid the body in the ground in the old French cemetery. She was buried in a pine coffin, leaving her body in the ground for a dozen years, although some had questions regarding her death.
Ten years later, the family tomb was opened to place the body of the deceased brother in the crypt. At this sad moment, it turned out that the lid of Mary's coffin was badly damaged - literally torn. The skeleton itself lay halfway out of the coffin. It was later believed that the doctor who signed the death certificate actually poisoned the girl, also trying to kill her mother.
These are wild deaths, but on each of them, there are many other people who were found dead in their graves, trying to escape from the coffin. It's a terrible thing, but there are probably still poor souls who, waking up in coffins, tried to leave the grave, but were not found.
