Throughout the centuries there have been a few accounts of people who managed to survive
their executions.
One such woman, Maggie Dickson was believed to have been dead when in Edinburgh she was
placed into a coffin, but after her family brought her body back, she awoke and was known
as half hangit Maggie after her strange date with the executioner at the gallows.
If someone survived an execution ordeal, the standard practice was that they would be then
given a reprieve as they were deemed to have lived past their death sentence which had
been administered.
There were some times that the hanging rope snapped, but then a new one was found quickly
and criminals did not escape.
But there were very few accounts of people surviving executions using a firing squad,
as it was considered a reliable method of execution.
But during the Mexico Revolution, there was one man who managed to survive this ordeal,
however he was left disfigured and reminded of his ordeal for the rest of his life.
Join us today as we look at the horrific execution of the man that survived a firing squad.
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Wenceslao Moguel Hererra was born in 1890, and he was known also as El Fusilado, or the
Executed one.
He was a soldier fighting under Pancho Villa, and was captured on the 18th March 1915 during
the Mexican Revolution.
The Revolution in Mexico was a series of armed conflicts that broke out in different regions,
and it has been referred to as ‘the defining event of modern Mexican history.’
It led to the destruction of the Federal army, which was then replaced by the revolutionary
army, and greatly impacted culture and the government.
It’s believed that during the conflict, between 1.7 million and 2.7 million Mexicans
were killed fighting, and hundreds of thousands of civilians were also executed.
Wenceslao Herrera was fighting under Pancho Villa, who was a general in the revolution
and Villa was a key figure in the revolutionary movement that forced out the President.
Following his defeat by the Constitutionalists in 1915, Northern rebels were met with harsh
punishment by regional armies.
Wenceslao Hererra, was considered a traitor by these and after he was captured he was
then sentenced without having a trial to death.
He was to face his execution by firing squad, which was the preferred means of execution
during the Mexican Revolution.
Wenceslao on the 18th March 1915 had his date with the firing squad, but shockingly he would
live another day.
The firing squad was made up of 9 soldiers who would all fire their weapons at Herrera
at the same time.
This would have resulted in his death instantly, and there was even a 10th officer who was
there to oversee the execution and give the command to fire.
He was also given the job of aiming at the prisoner’s vital organs and to deliver a
coup de grace, a final shot to the head that would kill him.
As the firing squad took their poisitions, with Wenceslao Herrera standing opposite them,
they fired into their victim.
The tenth officer even fired the coup de grace, and they assumed he was dead and then left.
They assumed he had been killed, but this was not the case.
Wenseslao had managed to survive, and he was in a huge amount of pain, and after his executioners
left, he then managed to crawl away and leave the scene.
It’s not known what happened next and how he managed to evade capture, or even survive
after he’d been riddled with bullets.
It was said, ‘the next day he was found unconscious among the dead bodies of his comrades.
He was given medical attention and recovered.’
Another account said, ‘He crawled away to the church of St James Apostle three blocks
away, where a church member found him and took him home to recuperate.’
However he was horrifically disfigured and scared permanently by the event, but he was
a man who ultimately managed to survive a firing squad, and he must have been one of
the only men to have done this.
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