Table of Contents
Imagine opening your eyes to see nothing but darkness. Every breath becomes harder to draw in as your lungs struggle to expand. You attempt to cry for help, but quickly realize no one can hear you. You try to plan your escape, but come to understand that there’s no way out of the box that surrounds you… everyone thinks you’re dead.
Being buried alive is something people generally only watch unfold during the climax of a horror movie, read about in twisted R-rated novels or watch play out in their nightmares from the safety of their very own bed.
There’s no way an accidental premature burial could actually happen nowadays, not with all of the technology and medical advancements that exist in the 21st century, right? Well think again.
In a new and compelling novel published Thursday by Pen and Sword, ‘Buried Alive’ by A.J. Griffiths-Jones dives right into spine-chilling cases from beneath the very ground we walk on – hundreds of souls who have lived this exact nightmare and been buried alive.
From coming-to while laying on a dissecting table in a morgue, to children hearing screams beneath their feet – Griffiths-Jones unravels the shockingly true stories of those who were subjected to such a terrifying fate in 12 chapters.
Dating as far back to the early 1800s and as recently as 2023, we take a look at some of the hair-raising stories from the book.
Zipped inside a body bag – alive
A 66-year-old Iowa woman suffering from dementia, anxiety and depression was transferred to hospice care in December 2022 due to ‘senile degeneration of the brain’. From there, hospice staff began administering morphine and Xanax. After a 12-hour shift in January 2023, an employee reported that ‘she did not feel a pulse, and the resident was not breathing at the time’.
A 66-year-old Iowa woman who was pronounced dead, but when an employee of the funeral home unzipped her body bag, she was alive and desperately gasping for air
Glen Oaks Alzheimer Special Care Center was fined $10,000 for failing to ‘assume the responsibility for the overall operation of the residential care facility’
The hospice staff member assessed the woman’s condition for five minutes before reporting her dead. The woman was placed inside a cloth body bag as she was transported to a local funeral home. When an employee of the funeral home unzipped the bag, they were met with a living and breathing woman who was desperately gasping for air.
Glen Oaks Alzheimer Special Care Center was fined $10,000 for failing to ‘assume the responsibility for the overall operation of the residential care facility.’ Nevertheless, the woman sadly died just two days after the ordeal while back in the hospice facility.
Playing children hear screams from underground
A group of children were playing near a cemetery in the port city of Thessaloniki, Greece in 2014 when a funeral service had just come to an end. Just minutes after those in the graveyard cleared out from the ceremony, the children heard muffled screaming and banging coming from underground. They had reported that the voice was that of a woman asking for help. Family members had also reported that they heard screams shortly after the burial.
When police arrived at the scene, they discovered a 45-year-old woman had been buried alive. She was declared dead by doctors at a private hospital who were treating her for cancer. They began digging up the grave to save her, but she had suffocated to death whilst inside the coffin. It was later discovered that the medicine given to her as part of her treatment had slowed down her heart rate, leading to doctors pronouncing her dead. Her loved ones were able to sue the facility involved, though it’s unclear how much for.
File photo of a cemetery is seen above. In Greece in 2014 children heard screams coming from underground
‘Dead’ man wakes up under the knife in a morgue
Carlos Camejo, 33, of Venezuela, was declared dead near Caracas following a horrific highway accident in 2007, and therefore taken to the morgue. When medical examiners made their first incision on Camejo’s face, they immediately knew something was wrong – the ‘dead’ man was bleeding on the table. At this point, he woke up.
Carlos Camejo, 33, of Venezuela, woke up in the middle of his own autopsy after the first incision to his face (pictured: Camejo with the scar)
Camejo found himself inside a morgue, on top of a dissecting table and in ‘unbearable’ pain. Realizing a serious mistake had been made, the medical examiners rushed to stitch the incision up before moving him to a separate room to recover. In that very same room was his grieving wife, who was naturally shocked to find her husband alive and well.
Woman wakes up during her own funeral service
Fagilyu Mukhametzyanov, 49, who had collapsed at her home due to chest pains, was pronounced dead by doctors at a hospital in Kazan, Russia, in 2011. They had told her husband that she had suffered a massive heart attack. Two days later, the woman’s grieving loved ones gathered for her funeral where they prayed and cried over her open casket.
Fagilyu Mukhametzyanov, 49, who had collapsed at her home due to chest pains, was pronounced dead by doctors at a hospital in Kazan, Russia, in 2011 – her husband was told she had suffered a massive heart attack
During her own funeral service, the 49-year-old woman woke up and began screaming upon realizing where she was. She ended up passing away 12 minutes later from heart failure due to shock
Woken up by the sound of sadness, Mukhametzyanov’s eyes fluttered open. She began desperately screaming after realizing where she was. Sadly, she had only lived 12 minutes after arriving back to the intensive care unit in the hospital. Her cause of death was recorded by medical staff as heart failure stemming from shock.
Spending 48 hours inside a morgue freezer
In March 1993, Sipho William Mdletshe was declared dead after a car accident in the township of Sebokeng, South Africa. Though his fiancée survived, he was immediately taken to the morgue. He ultimately spent the next 48 hours drifting in and out of consciousness while laying inside a metal box tucked into a freezing cold morgue freezer.
In March 1993, Sipho William Mdletshe was declared dead after a car accident in the township of Sebokeng, South Africa, and was put inside a morgue freezer – alive – where he stayed for 48 hours
Eventually, Mdletshe gained enough consciousness to realize he was completely trapped. Mortuary workers heard screaming coming from inside one of the boxes where they discovered the man alive and freed him.
In what should have been a miraculous love story, Mdletshe was instead turned down by his horrified fiancée after he attempted to reunite with her. She believed that he had returned to this life as a zombie, and therefore refused to continue the relationship.
Woman walks out of her coffin at the cemetery
Essie Dunbar, a 30-year-old member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina, was pronounced dead by a physician after she suffered from an epileptic fit back in 1915. She was then placed inside a wooden coffin to prepare for the next day’s burial service.
Essie Dunbar, a 30-year-old member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina stunned everyone when she sat up from her open coffin and smiled up at her sister
Dunbar lived for another 40-long-years before she died in 1955 at 97
Dunbar’s sister, who had lived in a neighboring town and didn’t receive news of her sibling’s death until the day of the ceremony, rushed to the cemetery just as the coffin was being covered with dirt. She begged the minister to let her see her sister one last time, which he ultimately agreed to after some persuasion. The coffin was lifted back out of the grave.
Just as the lid was opened, Dunbar sat up and smiled up at her sister – alive and glowing. Three ministers were so terrified that they fell into the six-foot grave – one of them suffering from three broken ribs. Dunbar’s own family also ran away as they believed she had come back as a ghost to terrorize them. They were filled with even more horror once Dunbar climbed out and attempted to follow them.
Nevertheless, Dunbar lived for another 40-long-years before she died in 1955 at 77.
A woman gives birth while buried six-feet under
Mademoiselle Bobin, of France, who had just traveled from Senegal and arrived at the port of Pauillac by steam ship in 1901, was said to be suffering from yellow fever during her journey. Health officers on board ordered that she be transferred to the hospital to be examined. Doctors said that the woman’s body, which had already appeared to look grayish and corpse-like, also looked stiff. She was recognized as being 100 percent dead. Bobin was then buried at the cemetery.
However, a nurse attending to the young woman had concerns – she noticed that her muscles appeared to be slightly trembling and felt as though her body was not cold when her death certificate was signed. She expressed her doubts to Bobin’s father, who ordered his daughter’s grave to be dug up.
As the coffin was opened, the corpse of a baby with an uncut umbilical word was lying inside, just between his daughter’s legs. An autopsy later discovered that the woman had regained consciousness while underground where she gave birth prematurely. Testing also revealed that Bobin had not been suffering from yellow fever, and instead suffocated alongside her newborn while inside the coffin.
Man distorts his face while trying to escape the grave
In Denver, Colorado, back in 1890, Louis Brenner, an employee of the South Park railroad shops, was thought to be dead. The funeral was set to be conducted by one of the local American Indian tribes. After the corpse was taken to Riverside Cemetery, there were several unknown issues connected to his funeral that casted doubt on the circumstances surrounding his death. The ‘unknowns’ led to a deeper investigation.
Officers were left in complete horror when they retrieved his remains. The coffin lid was split with the glass cover broken in. His body was laying face down – the inner lining of the coffin torn to shreds. Hair was yanked out of his head and his arms were bent – his hands so tightly clenched that his fingernails had dug into his flesh. Tragically, the man’s face was distorted from the struggle.
Brenner’s injuries clearly pointed to the fact that he had been buried alive and desperately struggled to free himself – helplessly.
Self-suffocation while trapped in a grave
A chambermaid who was struck by lightning near an unknown village back in 1824 had been buried the very next morning. After several voiced doubts, the body was exhumed eight days later. Horrifically, it was discovered she had been alive in the grave as injuries from her struggle were chilling.
The unnamed woman’s nails were bitten to pieces, her left breast mutilated. Blood had been flowing out of her mouth, which had four of her left-hand fingers deeply stuffed inside.
She was lying, eyes open, on her left side in torn clothing stained with blood. She had undoubtedly suffocated herself while trapped underground.
Little girl breathes before she’s lowered into the Earth
In January of 1729, a milkwoman’s daughter was to be buried in Enfield, England. Just as the young girl was set to be lowered into the ground, several loved ones commented on her non-corpse-like appearance – expressing to the mother that her daughter had looked ‘fresh’ rather than dead. One attendee went as far as pulling out a small handheld mirror or a piece of glass before lowering it to the child’s lips. They noted how a slight dew was present on the glass, as if she was faintly breathing.
Nevertheless, the cruel mother mocked the concerned guests, insisting that her daughter be buried without any further delays. The body was sealed in, lowered into the ground and covered with soil. Yet shortly after the burial, the mother’s odd behavior ultimately led to the grave being dug up and the coffin opened.
The little girl was tragically discovered with her knees drawn up – the bouquet of flowers in her hands bitten to pieces. It was clear that she had struggled for life while six-feet below the Earth.
Mother listens to cries as she buries her newborn alive
Maria Clarke, a 20-year-old woman from Wingfield, England, was arrested in March 1851 on the charge of murdering her own six-week-old baby boy, Arthur. His death was discovered to be undoubtedly chilling after the monstrous mother confessed to burying him alive in a meadow the day after her arrest.
An old newspaper snip shows 20-year-old Maria Clarke confessing to burying her six-week-old son alive
During her confession, she admitted that the young man who had promised to marry her wouldn’t go through with matrimony if he knew that she had a child – leaving her anxious about the future of her relationship. It wasn’t until her eyes landed on a shovel-like tool as she stepped out of one of her neighbor’s cottages that murder came to her mind.
Clarke was said to take the small spade to the meadow where she dug a hole and placed her newborn inside. She covered her baby with the Earth and ‘stamped upon the sod’ to muffle the screams from below. In a twisted end, she sat down where he was buried as she listened to him cry. After a short while, she headed back home.
Teenager spends 51 days trapped under heavy snow
In May 1893, 17-year-old Alexandrina Schitkine had fallen asleep on a pile of straw near the village of Bogorodskaya, Russia. Hours later, she woke up to find herself under a three-foot mass of snow that had just recently fallen. All attempts to free herself proved to be unsuccessful. The only thing she had with her was a few loaves of bread.
For the next 51 days, she remained buried under the snow. She was finally discovered in May where she was found in a state of complete exhaustion. After she was rescued, several days of constant care was required to nurse her back to strength as she was extremely malnourished. Shockingly, she said that she had not experienced any excessive cold during her weeks-long burial – only occasional shiver seizures.
Buried Alive: A History of Premature Burials and Accidental Interments by AJ Griffiths-Jones published by Pen and Sword is out now.
