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you wake up to find yourself in total darkness no matter how hard you strain your eyes not a single
glimmer of light can be seen shifting around you find yourself lying in a long narrow space with
thin padding all around and barely enough room to move the air is stale and smells faintly of
damp soil suddenly the horrifying realization strikes you're lying in a casket entombed under
six feet of earth if this sounds like your worst nightmare congratulations you likely suffer from
taphophobia the fear of being buried alive while today such a fear might seem completely irrational
for many people in the 18th and 19th centuries premature burial was very serious
business bordering on a cultural obsession and as with any trendy irrational societal fear
there were no shortage of innovators willing to offer clever and eccentric solutions guaranteed to
prevent you and your loved ones from entering the grave still breathing welcome to the macabre and
fascinating world of the safety coffin while tales of premature burial are as old as human history
the first credible reports date back to around the 16th century in his medical treatise history
of life and death english polymath francis bacon wrote that when the tomb of 13th century scottish
philosopher john dunn scotus was opened the corpse was found outside of its coffin the apparently
still living skodas having crawled his way out before dying for real in the 17th century there
emerged the story of englishwoman alex blunden who as the tale goes was knocked unconscious by an
overdose of poppy tea prescribed by her doctor after holding a mirror to her face to check if
she was still breathing the doctor declared alice dead and after two days she was laid in the ground
a few days later however children playing near her grave heard noises and ran to tell their
schoolmaster the schoolmaster investigated and discovered that alice was indeed still alive but
it took another day for her to be exhumed when the coffin was finally opened alice was so near death
that she was left in the grave and a guard posted to keep watch overnight the next morning she was
found dead but half out of her coffin having once again attempted to crawl from the grave an even
more gothic story dates from the late 18th century and concerns one countess emma edgecombe according
to the legend the countess was buried wearing a valuable ring a gravedigger who spotted the
ring during the burial returned to the graveyard at night to retrieve it but as he made to snatch
the ring from the grave the countess suddenly sprang alive and the gravedigger his pants likely
a little moister ran for the hills and was never seen again meanwhile the contest or wrapped in a
burial shroud walked half a mile from the grave back to her home shocking everyone who believed
it to be dead to this day a paved countess's path at the edgecomb estate in cornwall marks
the path of emma's undead journey while most such stories are either highly embellished or outright
fabrications they do contain a small kernel of truth for much of history determining whether
someone was actually dead was less than an exact science the methods of detecting life limited to
listening for a heartbeat or placing a mirror near the mouth and nose furthermore many diseases such
as cholera malaria and african sleeping sickness can produce comatose states which would have been
near indistinguishable from death indeed the aforementioned john dunn scotus is believed to
have slipped into a coma before being buried while the poppy tea consumed by alice blunden
would have contained morphine and codeine both of which are known to depress breathing spouse
it's entirely possible that up until the 20th century many people were actually buried alive
though the exact number is impossible to determine without digging up and checking every single grave
for signs of escape but whatever the actual risk the fear of being buried alive weighed heavily
on the people of the 18th and 19th centuries for instance american president george washington's
final request was reportedly to have me decently buried but do not let my body be put into a vault
in less than two days after i am dead while the dying words of polish composer chopin were
the earth is suffocating swear to make them cut me open so that i won't be buried alive
but while a great many people worried about being buried alive a few enterprising souls actually did
something about it among the first to devise a practical means of avoiding a premature burial
was english protestant minister robert robinson who upon his death in 1791 was placed in a special
coffin fitted with a glass window this was placed in a mausoleum with a door such that a watchman
or family member could check periodically whether robinson's breath had fogged the glass only once
decomposition had well and truly set in was the mausoleum finally sealed even more elaborate was
the coffin constructed by duke ferdinand brunswick prior to his death in 1792. in addition to a glass
window ferdinand's creation included ventilation tube to supply fresh air and was fitted with a
lock instead of being nailed shut in a pocket sewn into his burial shroud the duke carried two keys
one for the coffin lid and one for the tomb door this is considered to be history's first example
of a safety coffin a bizarre technological trend that over the next century would spawn
hundreds of weird and wonderful variations in 1798 p.g pessler a german priest suggested that
freshly buried corpses be provided with a string connected to the church bell tower so that if they
should happen to wake in the grave they could call for help by ringing the church bells while this
particular implementation was highly impractical tesla's idea inspired dozens of designs featuring
various bells gongs chimes signal flaps and even loud pyrotechnic charges that could be activated
from inside the coffin bell-equipped safety coffins are commonly claimed to be the origin
of the idioms dead ringer and saved by the bell but this is actually incorrect in reality dead
ringer derives from the older expression ring in the changes meaning to fraudulently swap
one thing out for another while saved by the bell comes from the sport of boxing following
in pessler's footsteps a safety golfing craze swept through 19th century germany with german
inventors patenting no fewer than 33 designs of ever increasing complexity and eccentricity one
1829 designed by dr johann gottfried featured a bell connected via strings to the occupants head
hands and feet such that even the slightest movement would set it off a special protective
housing prevented the bell from being accidentally wrung by the wind and rain water from running down
the breathing tube while a screen stopped insects from entering the coffin once alerted by the bell
a graveyard watchman could use a bellows to pump air into the coffin until its occupant could be
exhumed another variation was designed by count michelle de karinitzukonitsky chamberlain to sar
nicholas ii of russia named rather modestly le carnese the device used a spring-loaded
glass ball placed on the corpse's chest to detect breathing or movement once activated the mechanism
opened the coffin lid raised a signal flag ran an electric bell and opened a breathing tube
to the surface unfortunately the device proved somewhat unreliable and an 1897 demonstration
wherein kaninsky's assistance were buried alive ended poorly when the signaling mechanism failed
thankfully the breathing tube activated as designed and the doubtless rather annoyed
assistant was safely disinterred unsurprisingly it failed to attract any buyers other salesmen were
more successful dr adolf gutsmith who patented his own safety coffin in 1822 promoted his invention
by being buried alive for hours and eating a full meal of soup bratwurst sauerkraut beer and
cake through the coffin's integrated feeding tube as time went by safety coffins incorporated
evermore bells and whistles for example franz vesta's 1868 improved burial case included a
shaft and ladder to allow the prematurely buried to climb out of their own grave charles sealer
and frederick borntrager's 1885 design included a clockwork driven ventilation fan johann jacob
tulan's 1907 patent was a spring-loaded coffin lid and edwin crosby and elray henry's 1904 patent was
a telegraph to allow the confidence occupant to communicate with the surface using morse code
somewhat bafflingly however despite their apparent sophistication many of these designs failed to
include any sort of breathing tube making them of somewhat dubious utility there were also more
elegant proposals in the 1790s one pastor beck suggested fitting the coffin with a vertical
trumpet-like tube which would supply both fresh air and allow the occupant to call for help the
local priest could also check on the state of the corps by sniffing for the odor of putrefaction
rising from the tube in later designs the tube was packed with a chemical such as lead acetate which
could change color in the presence of gases like hydrogen sulfide produced by decomposition
once putrefaction was confirmed the tube could be removed and the grave sealed yet despite this
flurry of innovation there is little evidence that any of these designs was ever manufactured
or purchased on a large scale nor that one ever saved someone from premature burial there are
many reasons for this for example many of the mechanisms designed to detect signs of life were
so sensitive that they would have been triggered by the natural bloating or settling of the corpse
resulting in endless false positives even chemical detectors were not foolproof rotting teeth
for example also produce hydrogen sulfide thus a prematurely buried person with poor dental hygiene
like most people in the 18th and 19th centuries would have appeared to be decomposing nonetheless
safety coffins captured the popular imagination featuring in many works of contemporary fiction
in 1844 master of the macabre edgar allen poe pens the short story the premature burial in
which the narrator suffers from a condition known as catalepsy which produces bouts of
death-like paralysis gripped by overwhelming tapophobia he refuses to leave his house and
goes to great lengths to avoid being buried alive including constructing an elaborate safety coffin
in the end however these precautions appear to be for naught but one day the narrator awaits to find
himself lying in his grave but in a last-minute twist he is revealed to actually be sleeping in
the birth of a small boat this realization shocks the narrator out of his morbid obsession and he is
miraculously cured of his catalepsy while safety coffins never caught on commercially in many parts
of the world precautions were nonetheless taken to avoid premature burial such measures could be
as simple as waiting several days before burying a corpse as had been practiced in the days of
ancient rome others were rather more elaborate the 1820s for example saw the introduction of
portable death chambers in where else other than germany these were essentially simplified safety
coffins erected over an open grave equipped with a signaling bell and a window for observing the
corpse the recently deceased would be left in the chamber above ground until decomposition set in
where upon a trap door would be opened dropping the corpse into the grave the grave would then be
filled in and the death chamber would be reused in the 1880s lichen houses or waiting mortuaries were
a fixture of several german cities particularly munich in these establishments the deceased were
laid out on zinc trays filled with antiseptic and monitored by staff for signs of life as
with the death chambers only when decomposition was well underway would the corpses be sent to
the graveyard for burial waiting mortuaries all morgues became popular attractions in the late
19th century with crowds of people paying good money to gawk at the fresh corpses indeed the
modern term morg comes from an old french word meaning to watch or observe cultural obsession
with premature burial reached a fever pitch in the mid to late 19th century fueled by a
series of deadly cholera epidemics and the work of death activists like william tebb and roger
s chu tebb was businessman who devoted much of his spare time to social causes such as animal
rights and pacifism while chu was a doctor who had himself avoided being prematurely buried thanks to
the sharp-eyed intervention of a family member together with edward vollman another premature
burial survivor in 1896 deben chu founded the london association for the prevention of premature
burial and in 1905 published a book titled premature burial and how it may be prevented an
instant bestseller that is still imprinted today premature burial was a complete guide to untimely
internment listing various medical conditions that could produce apparent death and methods
for determining whether someone was actually dead these techniques range from the advanced such as
the then new technique of artificial respiration to the extreme such as blistering the corpse's
skin with hot iron or shocking it with electricity to the highly questionable such as injecting the
corpse with morphine or strickling to make doubly sure it was dead the book also featured detailed
accounts of 149 cases of premature burial and 219 cases of near-premature burial meticulously
collected and cataloged by tebb whether any of these accounts are actually credible however
is highly questionable for a study conducted in paris found that of the 465 000 people taken to
waiting mortuaries between 1822 and 1845 not a single one came back to life prior to being buried
despite being widely mocked by the medical community tebb continued to advocate tirelessly
for the prematurely buried until his death in 1917 whereupon following his own advice his corpse was
left unburied for a week before being cremated his efforts however did eventually lead to real
change in researching historical accounts of premature burial teb discovered that the
vast majority of cases resulted from death being pronounced by a non-medical individual indeed at
the time most death certificates were issued by doctors who had never even examined the corpse
thanks to the advocacy of teb and others the laws were eventually changed such that death could be
legally only declared by a medical professional by this time however the actual risk of premature
burial had reached an all-time low one reason for this was the widespread adoption of embalming
which guaranteed that a corpse was actually dead prior to burial another was the development of
advanced medical diagnostic equipment such as the electrocardiogram or ekg which allowed even the
faintest signs of life to be detected but while the risk of being buried alive is for all intents
and purposes zero it does occasionally still happen in 2011 fagiliu mukhamer tazhayanov of
kazan russia collapsed in a home and was declared dead of a heart attack several days later while
lying in a casket at her funeral she suddenly came too and somewhat understandably began to freak the
[ __ ] out she was immediately rushed to hospital where she survived for another 12 minutes before
dropping dead of heart failure another case was reported in 2014 when 78 year old walter williams
of holmes county was declared dead zipped into a body bag and sent to a funeral home but while
lying in the embalming room williams began to twitch while an understandably shocked embalmer
noticed he was still breathing williams was rushed to the hospital where he clung onto
life for another two weeks before passing away for real this time if these stories make a skin crawl
and reignited a lingering fear of premature burial then never fear for you can still buy a very own
safety coffin in 1995 invrenter fabrizio caselli patented a modern twist on this victorian era
technology incorporating all the latest bells and whistles including an emergency alarm an intercom
a self-contained oxygen system a flashlight a heart monitor and an automatic defibrillator
a more practical 2014 patent by abdul ryder al-safar describes a portable alarm system that
can be fitted to any standard coffin featuring a lamp to illuminate the interior of the coffin a
button-operated alarm and an intercom if no signs of life are forgoing the system
can easily be removed and used on another grave so thanks to the wonders of modern
technology you can sleep easy knowing that your final rest won't be rudely interrupted probably