Buried alive. Gogol's lethargy

The fate of being buried alive can befall each of us. For example, you can fall into Sopor, relatives will think that you have died, 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 Yaponchik liked to do this.

Maybe that's why all the "bohemians" and the party communicated with him so nicely?

Many of us have seen the movie "Buried Alive" where main character comes to his senses and finds that he is buried alive in a wooden box, where oxygen is gradually running out. You can hardly imagine a worse situation. And those who watched this movie to the end will agree with this.
Horror stories about how a person was buried alive have been around 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 happen. Rumor has it that a similar terrible situation happened to the great writer Nikolai Gogol, and not to him alone.

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 what this or that person died from, and for this they open it, examine the organs and, at the end, neatly sew it up. You understand that waking up in a coffin in this situation will not work, rather, the line “The autopsy showed that death occurred as a result of an autopsy” will appear in the conclusion of the pathologist.

How to save yourself if you woke up in a coffin, and there was a boarded-up lid and a couple of meters of earth above you? How to get out of the coffin
First, don't panic! Seriously, panic can greatly reduce the time available to survive. In a state of panic, you will use oxygen more actively. You can usually live in a coffin for one or two hours - provided you don't panic. If you can meditate, do it immediately. Try to relax as much as possible, this will help you think more clearly.

Check if you can call. It is not uncommon these days for people to be buried with cell phones, tablets, or other means of communication. If this is the case for you, try contacting relatives or friends. Once you do this, relax and meditate to conserve oxygen.

Don't have a cell phone? Okay... Given that you are still alive in a coffin with limited air supply, you were buried recently. So the ground must be soft enough.

Loosen the lid with your hands in the cheapest fiberboard coffins, you can even make a hole ( wedding ring, belt buckle…)
Cross your arms over your chest, grabbing your shoulders with your palms and pull off your shirt or T-shirt up, tie it in a knot over your head, hanging in a bag on your head, it will protect you from suffocation if it hits the face of the earth.

If your coffin is not already damaged by the weight of the earth, use your feet to make a hole in the coffin. The best place this will be the middle of the lid.

After you have successfully cracked open the coffin, use your hands and feet to push the earth entering the hole to the edges of the coffin. Fill the coffin with earth as much as possible, tamping it down, so as not to lose the opportunity to stick your head and shoulders into the hole.

By all means try to sit down, the earth will fill empty place and shift in your favor, do not stop and continue to breathe calmly.
After you have packed as much earth inside the coffin as you can, use all your strength to stand up straight. It may be necessary to make a larger hole in the lid, but this will not be difficult in the case of a cheap coffin.

Once your head is on the surface and you can breathe freely, feel free to give yourself a little panic, even scream if you need to. If no one comes to your aid, drag yourself out of the ground, wriggling like a worm.

Remember the earth in a fresh grave is always loose and “fighting it is relatively easy”, it is much more difficult to get out in the rain: wet earth is denser and heavier. The same can be said about clay.

If your relatives are not miserly and have buried you in a stainless steel coffin, the best thing to do in this case is to try to make loud noises from the coffin by pressing on the lid at its fastenings 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 a lighter if you have them is a bad idea. An open fire will very quickly destroy the entire supply of oxygen.

Buried alive

It is no coincidence that almost all peoples decided to hold the burial ceremony not immediately, but after a certain amount of days after death. There were many cases when the "dead" came to life at the funeral, 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. Deliberate burial of a person alive according to the laws of the Russian Federation is considered a murder committed with special cruelty and is punished accordingly.

Imaginary death

Lethargy is an unexplored painful condition that is similar to ordinary dreaming. Even in ancient times, the absence of breathing and the cessation of the heartbeat were considered signs of death. However, in the absence of modern equipment, it was difficult to determine where the imaginary death was and where the real one was. Now there are practically no cases of burial of living people, but a couple of centuries ago it was a fairly common phenomenon. 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 in danger of death. There are many examples of lethargic sleep and related issues in the literature, but they are not always scientifically justified and are often fiction. So, the science fiction novel by H. G. Wells "When the Sleeper Wakes" tells about a man who "slept" for 200 years. This is, of course, impossible.

Terrible awakening

There are 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 the grave and everyone who was at the same time were shocked by what they saw. As it turned out, the girl began to give birth and from this she 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, unfortunately, his fear materialized. The respected man woke up in a coffin and started screaming. At that moment, a young man was walking through the cemetery, who, having heard the voice of a man, ran for help. When the coffin was dug and opened, people saw the dead man with a frozen, terrible grimace. The victim died a few minutes before the rescue. Doctors diagnosed him with cardiac arrest, the man could not withstand such a terrible awakening to reality.

There were people who perfectly understood what a lethargic dream was and what to do if such a disaster overtook them. For example, the English playwright Wilkie Collins was afraid that he would be buried during his lifetime. There was always a note by his bed telling him what to do before his burial.

Method of execution

As a way death penalty burial alive was used 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 Drevlyansk ambassadors alive. In the Middle Ages in Italy, unrepentant murderers were waiting for the fate of people buried alive. The Zaporizhian Cossacks buried the killer alive in a coffin with the person he had killed. In addition, the methods of execution through burial alive were used by the Germans during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. With such a terrible method, the Nazis executed Jews.

Ritual burials

It is worth noting that there are cases when people voluntarily find themselves buried alive. So, for certain peoples South America, Africa and Siberia, there is a rite in which people bury the shaman of their village alive. It is believed that during the ritual of "pseudo-burial" the healer receives the gift of communication with the souls of dead ancestors.

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 after a few days. There were many cases when the "dead" 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 little-studied painful condition, similar to sleep. Signs of death have always been considered the cessation of the heartbeat and the absence of breathing. But during lethargic sleep, all life processes also freeze, and it is quite difficult to distinguish real death from imaginary (as lethargic sleep is often called) without modern equipment. Therefore, earlier cases of burial of people who did not die, but fell asleep in a lethargic sleep, took place quite often, and sometimes with famous people.

If now burial alive is already a fantasy, then even 100-200 years ago, cases of burying living people were not so uncommon. Very often, gravediggers, digging a fresh grave at ancient burial sites, found twisted bodies in half-decayed coffins, which showed that they were trying to get free. They say that in medieval cemeteries every third grave was such a terrible sight.

Fatal sleeping pill

Helena Blavatsky described strange cases of lethargic sleep: “In 1816, in Brussels, a respected citizen fell into deep lethargy on a Sunday morning. On Monday, when his companions were preparing to drive nails into the coffin lid, he sat down in the coffin, rubbed his eyes and demanded coffee and a newspaper. In Moscow, the wife of a wealthy merchant 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 expiration of the said period, the life of the allegedly dead was restored. In Bergerac in 1842, the patient took sleeping pills, but ... did not wake up. They let him bleed: he did not wake up. Finally he was declared dead and buried. A few days later, they remembered taking 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 - a lethargic dream is actually quite a frequent occurrence.

Terrible awakening

Many people tried to protect themselves from being buried alive. For example, the famous writer Wilkie Collins left a note by his bed with a list of measures to be taken before he was buried. But the writer was an educated person and had the concept of a lethargic dream, 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 indistinct sound from under the ground. The frightened child called the adults who dug the coffin. When the lid was removed, the shocked witnesses saw that a terrible grimace had 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 under the ground, 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 Irina Andreevna Maletina, a resident of Krasnoyarsk - 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 had died of sudden cardiac arrest. As expected, Mikhail was buried on the third day, a wake was celebrated ... And suddenly the next night the dead son dreamed of his mother 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 to her in a dream 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. Irina Andreevna had to make incredible efforts to obtain permission to carry out the exhumation. When the coffin was opened, the grief-stricken woman turned gray with horror in an instant. Her dearly beloved son lay on his side. His clothes, ritual veil and pillow were torn to shreds. There were numerous abrasions and bruises on the hands of the corpse, which were not present at the time of the funeral. All this eloquently testified that the man woke up in the grave, and then died long and painfully. Elena Ivanovna Duzhkina, a resident of the city of Bereznyaki near Solikamsk, 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 ashore. Frightened children called adults. People opened the coffin and were horrified to see a yellowish skeleton dressed in decayed rags. The skeleton lay prone, legs tucked under it. The entire lid of the coffin, which had darkened from time to time, was dotted with deep scratches from the inside.

Live Gogol

The most famous such case was the terrible story associated with Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. During his life, he several times fell into a strange, absolutely immobile state, reminiscent of death. But the great writer always quickly came to his senses, although he managed to pretty scare others. Gogol knew about this peculiarity of his and more than anything in the world 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 state here my last will.
I bequeath my body not to be buried until clear signs of decomposition appear. I mention this because even during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness found on me, my heart and pulse stopped beating. ”After the writer’s death, they did not heed 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 that had nothing to do with lethargic dreams and burials alive. Gogol's skeleton was missing... a head. According to rumors, she disappeared in 1909, when the monks of the Danilov Monastery restored the grave of the writer. Allegedly, they were persuaded to cut it off for a considerable amount by the collector and rich man Bakhrushin, with whom she remained. This is a wild story, but it is quite possible to believe in 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 keepsake" some pieces of clothing, some shoes, and some Gogol's rib...

Call from beyond

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 who is considered dead can wake up among the dead, get up and call him. The servants will immediately come running at his call. This bell and the revival of the dead are very often played out in horror films, but in reality such stories almost never happened. But during the autopsy, the "corpses" came to life more than once. In 1964, a New York mortuary performed an autopsy 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 mourning speeches, the deceased suddenly sneezed, opened his eyes, sat in a coffin and “almost died a second time, seeing located". A thorough examination at the local hospital of the man who had risen from the coffin did not reveal any pathological changes in his body. The Novosibirsk doctors, to whom the resurrected engineer was sent, gave the same conclusion.

Ritual burials

However, people are not always buried alive against their will. So, among some African tribes, the peoples of South America, Siberia and the Far North, there is a ritual in which the healer of the tribe buries a relative alive. In a number of nationalities, this rite is also carried out as the initiation of boys. In some tribes, it is used for and for certain diseases. In the same way, the elderly or the sick are prepared for the transition to another world. The ritual of “pseudo-burial” occupies an important place among the ministers of shamanic cults. It is believed that, lying alive in the grave, the shaman receives the gift of communication with the spirits of the earth, as well as with the souls of dead ancestors. Some channels seem to open in his mind, through which he communicates with unknown mere mortal worlds. 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 that, the body of the shaman was rubbed with incense, wrapped in the skin of a bear, and lowered into a grave arranged in the center of the family cemetery, accompanied by ritual singing. A few days later, during which rituals were continuously performed over the grave, the buried shaman was taken out of the ground, washed in three running waters and fumigated with incense. On the same day, the village celebrated the second birth of a respected fellow tribesman who, having been in the “kingdom of the dead”, occupied the top step in the hierarchy of pagan cult ministers...

In recent years, a tradition has appeared to put charged mobile phones next to the dead - suddenly it’s not death at all, but a dream, suddenly a dear person comes to his senses and calls his relatives - I’m alive, dig me back ... But so far there have been no such cases - in our days, with perfect diagnostic devices, in principle it is impossible to bury a person alive. Nevertheless, people do not trust doctors and try to protect themselves from a terrible awakening in the grave. In 2001, a scandalous incident occurred in the United States. A resident of Los Angeles, Joe Barten, who was terribly afraid of falling into a lethargic sleep, bequeathed to make ventilation in his coffin, put food and a phone 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. Interestingly, Barten's relatives refused to receive an inheritance - the process of making calls to the other world seemed too creepy to them ...

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 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 giving birth, the girl's husband realized that she would most likely need professional help. health care 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 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 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 Compton Park - 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 bicycle path under the asphalt completely small child, 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 parents who did not want to raise a child born with a cleft lip put the baby in cardboard box and taken 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.

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 fate of being buried alive can befall each of us. For example, you may fall into a lethargic sleep, relatives will think that you are dead, 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 Yaponchik liked to do this.

Maybe that's why all the "bohemians" and the party communicated with him so nicely?

Many of us have watched the movie Buried Alive, where the main character wakes up and finds himself buried alive in a wooden box where oxygen is gradually running out. You can hardly imagine a worse situation. And those who watched this movie to the end will agree with this.
Horror stories about how a person was buried alive have been around 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 happen. Rumor has it that a similar terrible situation happened to the great writer Nikolai Gogol, and not to him alone.

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 what this or that person died from, and for this they open it, examine the organs and, at the end, neatly sew it up. You understand that waking up in a coffin in this situation will not work, rather, the line “The autopsy showed that death occurred as a result of an autopsy” will appear in the conclusion of the pathologist.

How to save yourself if you woke up in a coffin, and there was a boarded-up lid and a couple of meters of earth above you? How to get out of the coffin
First, don't panic! Seriously, panic can greatly reduce the time available to survive. In a state of panic, you will use oxygen more actively. You can usually 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. It is not uncommon these days for people to be buried with cell phones, tablets, or other means of communication. If this is the case for you, try contacting relatives or friends. Once you do this, relax and meditate to conserve oxygen.

Don't have a cell phone? Okay... Given that you are still alive in a coffin with limited air supply, you were buried recently. So the ground must be soft enough.

Loosen the lid with your hands in the cheapest fiberboard coffins, you can even make a hole (wedding ring, belt buckle ...)
Cross your arms over your chest, grabbing your shoulders with your palms and pull off your shirt or T-shirt up, tie it in a knot over your head, hanging in a bag on your head, it will protect you from suffocation if it hits the face of the earth.

If your coffin is not already damaged by the weight of the earth, use your feet to make a hole in the coffin. The best place for this would be the middle of the lid.

After you have successfully cracked open the coffin, use your hands and feet to push the earth entering the hole to the edges of the coffin. Fill the coffin with earth as much as possible, tamping it down, so as not to lose the opportunity 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.
After you have packed as much earth inside the coffin as you can, use all your strength to stand up straight. It may be necessary to make a larger hole in the lid, but this will not be difficult in the case of a cheap coffin.

Once your head is on the surface and you can breathe freely, feel free to give yourself a little panic, even scream if you need to. If no one comes to your aid, drag yourself out of the ground, wriggling like a worm.

Remember the earth in a fresh grave is always loose and “fighting it is relatively easy”, it is much more difficult to get out in the rain: wet earth is denser and heavier. The same can be said about clay.

If your relatives are not misers and have buried you in a stainless steel coffin, the best thing to do in this case is to try to make loud noises from the coffin by pressing on the lid at its fastenings or by 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 a lighter if you have them is a bad idea. An open fire will very quickly destroy the entire supply of oxygen.

Buried alive

It is no coincidence that almost all peoples decided to hold the burial ceremony not immediately, but after a certain number of days after death. There were many cases when the "dead" came to life at the funeral, 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. Deliberate burial of a person alive according to the laws of the Russian Federation is considered a murder committed with special cruelty and is punished accordingly.

Imaginary death

Lethargy is an unexplored painful condition that is similar to ordinary dreaming. Even in ancient times, the absence of breathing and the cessation of the heartbeat were considered signs of death. However, in the absence of modern equipment, it was difficult to determine where the imaginary death was and where the real one was. Now there are practically no cases of burial of living people, but a couple of centuries ago it was a fairly common phenomenon. 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 in danger of death. There are many examples of lethargic sleep and related issues in the literature, but they are not always scientifically justified and are often fiction. So, the science fiction novel by H. G. Wells "When the Sleeper Wakes" tells about a man who "slept" for 200 years. This is, of course, impossible.

Terrible awakening

There are 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 the grave and everyone who was at the same time were shocked by what they saw. As it turned out, the girl began to give birth and from this she 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, unfortunately, his fear materialized. The respected man woke up in a coffin and started screaming. At that moment, a young man was walking through the cemetery, who, having heard the voice of a man, ran for help. When the coffin was dug and opened, people saw the dead man with a frozen, terrible grimace. The victim died a few minutes before the rescue. Doctors diagnosed him with cardiac arrest, the man could not withstand such a terrible awakening to reality.

There were people who perfectly understood what a lethargic dream was and what to do if such a disaster overtook them. For example, the English playwright Wilkie Collins was afraid that he would be buried during his lifetime. There was always a note by his bed telling him what to do before his burial.

Method of execution

As a method of death penalty, burial alive was used 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 Drevlyansk ambassadors alive. In the Middle Ages in Italy, unrepentant murderers were waiting for the fate of people buried alive. The Zaporizhian Cossacks buried the killer alive in a coffin with the person he had killed. In addition, the methods of execution through burial alive were used by the Germans during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. With such a terrible method, the Nazis executed Jews.

Ritual burials

It is worth noting that there are cases when people voluntarily find themselves buried alive. So, among certain peoples of South America, Africa and Siberia there is a rite in which people bury the shaman of their village alive. It is believed that during the ritual of "pseudo-burial" the healer receives the gift of communication with the souls of dead ancestors.

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