Buried Alive and Vivesection

This post is mostly for fun. I want to hear your stories about premature burials, and vivisection. (Even if you heard it from someone who heard it from someone ect.)

A little background on how I became interested in premature burial:

While looking through the medical section of a book store, I came across a book that sparked my more macabre interests. “Buried Alive” by: Dr. Jan Bondeson. I read the book in less than a day, and continued studying from there.

The chance of being buried alive in pre-modern science was just accepted as a fact of life. One source that I found said that when a 17th century graveyard was moved about 10% of the bodies showed signs of premature burial. Germany even went so far as to have “hospitals” for the dead. Were they would wait for the body to begin purification before burying them, in order to prevent this horrible fate.

But what about in modern times, I wondered. Certainly in third world countries the fear is still real but what about America. What I discovered was a little disturbing. It seems that even with our modern day advancements death is not always a certainty. (Not considering the whole brain death debate.) In certain cases of electrocution, head trauma, hypothermia, drug overdose, poison, extreme intoxication, stroke and drowning, the subject cannot only fool doctors, but ECG, EEG, and can even show no CNS response or blood pressure at all! Yet wake up in the morgue hours later.

Now of course even if the body were to be still alive embalming would take care of you, right? In fact several religions (including Judaism, and Islam) practiced in America forbid embalming, and insist on a quick burial. Many people think embalming is necessary, but in most states the choice is yours, and if your family does not want to pay for it…

A resent conservative estimate based on the number of non-embalmed bodies, and the number of people waking up after doctors declared them dead, shows that about 2 people per year est. in America are buried alive. Not the most frightening odds, but still terrible for those estimated two.

Perhaps an equally grizzly fate is vivisection. There is a great amount of evidence to show that this happens more often than people would like to think. One example given by Dr. Bondeson is of a man regaining brain function during organ harvesting! That combined with the stories of people in the above mentioned death trance like state later saying they were able to hear and feel pain, leaves the mind open to some grizzly possibilities. How many organ donors, in this death like state have lived their last moments of life being dissected alive, and aware.

Once again this is mostly for fun, any rumors, hersay, or facts you know of involving these Phenomena would be greatly appreciated.

Here are some links to stories about premature burials if I have peaked your interest.
www.snopes.com...
members.tripod.com...
www.theshadowlands.net...
en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 15-6-2009 by NRA4ever333]

Sorry - I was being too flippant.

[edit on 22-6-2009 by berenike]

[edit on 22-6-2009 by TruthJusticeFreedom]

I did hear that they used to have a pipe that was installed on the casket with a rope through it to a bell. It was the duty of a relative, friend or sometimes the graveyard care taker to listen for the bells for three days after the body was interred. The pipe also allowed air to reach the body. After a week the pipe was removed and the hole filled.

Vivisections were practiced as for back the third century by Erasistratus in Alexandria. These vivisections were intentional and done with no anestesia while the victim was fully awake. They were done very carefully to keep the victim alive as long as possible.

Not a cheerful subject.

reply to post by badgerprints


Thank you very much for your reply.

I did not know about the vivisection comment, I will have to look into that.

But the “safety coffin” I did know about, they actually made a wide variety of them with bells, flares, speaking tubes, and other signaling devices. But the fear of these devices failing and leaving them trapped underground with an air supply to keep them alive made them fairly unpopular.

The most recent “safety coffin” that I know about was in the early 20th century. A man (Angelo Hays) was thought to be dead and buried alive. The police though that there may have been foul play involved and uninterred the body three days later. But before an autopsy was done he was found to be still alive, just in a coma. (the coma apparently reduced his need for oxygen, keeping him alive for days.) The man fully recovered and made his own line of “safety coffins” with a radio with antenna for signaling for help, an internal oxygen supply, books, lights, refrigerator, and a TV. But it cost as much as a car (and from what I here was about the size of one) so few people bought them.

I am really not usually a dark person, the above mentioned book just brought about a macabre fascination in me.

Thank you again for your reply.