And now to premature burials

The taxi driver paniced and lost control, with the car landing in a ditch. The passenger, in shock, asked why the taxi driver had responded that way.
“I have been a hearse driver all my life and this is my first assignment as a taxi driver,” said the taxi driver.
A hearse driver normally expects to have silent and motionless passengers at the back of his vehicle.
When they get to pat on the back the driver is bound to land in a ditch. Tales abound of people pronounced dead when in fact they could be in some state of comma. The modernday practise of getting a doctor to certify the death of a person has its roots in premature deaths and burials.
Human beings for many generations have found themselves facing premature burial or being buried alive under different circumstances, which can either be intentional or accidental. Intentional live burials were practised as a form of torture, punishment, murder or execution.
In rare cases, some people would volunteer to be buried alive as a stunt. Accidental premature burial happens following a disaster or collapse of a building, a mine, or a landslide.
There however, have been widespread unintentional live burials of humans over the years, ostensibly on mistaken belief that the living person has died. In cases where it is discovered that they have been mistakenly buried, quick action could help save them, although the mistake could come at a cost.
Premature burial could lead to actual death, resulting from asphyxiation, dehydration, starvation, or cold due to exposure.
Although some human beings are known to have survived premature burial, in some environments, the absence of air, loss of consciousness is known to eventually kill them.
The brief survival in such adverse circumstances has been attributed to slow body metabolism. Permanent brain damage through oxygen starvation may occur even if the person is rescued before death.
Intentional: In the past, live burial has been used as a very cruel method of execution, lasting long enough for the victim to comprehend and imagine every stage of what is happening, being trapped in total darkness with very limited or no movement and to experience great psychological and physical torment including panic and extreme claustrophobia.
Unintentional: Hundreds of cases were reported, in which doctors mistakenly pronounced people dead after they fell into death-like trances. Some modern day victims of premature death are epileptic patients, who when they get an attack while away from home, might be mistaken for dead.
The traditional funeral all-night vigil in the room where the deceased would be lying in state has its roots from the fear of premature burials. The vigil is done to ascertain definite death with people keeping guard day and night in the run up to the burial, just in case, the dead wakes up, and will be readily available to assist him.
In the Western world, premature burials prompted many including an Italian coffin and casket manufacturer to, in 1995, introduce a model with a beeper and intercom system so the victim could communicate in the event of premature death.
Count Karnice-Karnicki of Belgium before that had patented a rescue device in 1897, which mechanically detected chest movement to trigger a flag, lamp, bell, and fresh air.
Along similar lines, in the UK, various systems were developed to save those buried alive, including breakable glass panels in the coffin lid and pulley systems which would raise flags on the surface.
Without air supply, as in the Italian model, this naturally would be useless without vigilant guards above ground. As such, undertakers were hired to stay in the graveyard at night to watch out for such signals.
In 1890 a family designed and built a burial vault at the Wildwood Cemetery in Williamsport, Pennsylv-ania with an internal hatch to allow the victim of accidental premature burial to escape.
Fearing premature burial, George Washington on his death-bed is said to have made his servants promise not to bury him until three days after his death.
As means of execution: In ancient Rome, a Vestal Virgin convicted of violating her vows of celibacy was buried alive by being sealed in a cave with a small amount of bread and water, ostensibly so that the goddess Vesta could save her should she have been truly innocent.
In medieval Italy, unrepentant murderers were buried alive. In the 17th and early 18th centuries in feudal Russia, the same mode of execution was known as “the pit” and used against women who were condemned for killing their husbands. The last known case of this occurred in 1740.
Voluntary burial: On rare occasions, some people actually voluntarily arranged to be buried alive, reportedly as a demonstration of their controversial ability to survive such an event. In one such story taking place around 1840, Sadhu Haridas, an Indian fakir, (loosely Hindu), is said to have been buried in the presence of a British military officer and under the supervision of the local maharajah, (Indian Prince) by being placed in a sealed bag in a wooden box in a vault.
The vault was then interred, earth was flattened over the site, and crops were sown over the place for ten months.
The whole location was guarded day and night to prevent fraud and the site was dug up twice in the ten-month period to verify the burial, before the fakir was finally dug out and slowly revived in the presence of another officer. The fakir said that his only fear during his “wonderful sleep” was to be eaten by underground worms.
Current medical science says it is not possible for a human being to survive for a period of 10 months without food, water, and air. Since many who have tried this feat died. As a result, being voluntarily buried alive is illegal in many countries. Hungarian-American magician and escapologist Harry Houdini performed two variations on a “Buried Alive” stunt/escape.
The first was near Santa Ana, California in 1917, and it almost cost Houdini his life. Houdini was buried, without a casket, in a pit of earth six feet deep. He became exhausted and panicky tried to dig his way to the surface and called for help. When his hand finally broke the surface, he fell unconscious and had to be pulled from the grave by his assistants. Houdini wrote in his diary that the escape was “very dangerous” and that “the weight of the earth is killing.”
Houdini’s second variation on Buried Alive was an endurance test designed to expose a mystical Egyptian performer who claimed to use supernatural powers to remain in a sealed casket for an hour.
Houdini bettered that claim on August 5, 1926, by remaining in a sealed casket submerged in the swimming pool of New York’s Hotel Shelton for one hour and a half.
Houdini claimed he did not use any trickery or supernatural powers to accomplish this feat, just controlled breathing. Most escape acts of today are said to be a Houdini.
In the14th through 15th centuries, a popular tale about premature burial in European folklore was the “Lady with the Ring”. In the story, a woman who was prematurely buried awakens to frighten a grave robber who is attempting to cut a ring off her finger. In our next article we look at grave robbers.
– Philip Mataranyika is the CEO of Nyaradzo Funeral Assurance Company. Send feedback to: mavmat67@hotmail.com