Hundreds Fear Being Buried Alive

1889

DREAD OF LIVE BURIAL.

Hundreds Who Fear the Coffin Will Close on Them Alive.

Many people who come to us have a dreadful fear that they may be buried alive, and, while there is a remote possibility that this might happen, says a N. Y. undertaker, I have not known a single instance of it in all my experience. These people insist on my promising to observe the utmost precaution even so far as to run red-hot needles into their bodies, and other equally barbaric treatment, before they are finally consigned to the earth.

About four years ago a young man called upon me one morning in a terrible state of agitation. He had dreamed the night before that his sister, who had been recently buried, had come to life after being placed under the sod. I tried to prove to him the utter improbability of such an occurrence, but without avail. He insisted that her grave should be opened that he might be satisfied. I was actually horror stricken at the suggestion, not that I had the remotest idea that his dream could prove true, but the thought flashed across my mind that if it should be so the shock would make him a raving maniac.

I tried to persuade him to defer the matter until the following day, but he positively refused. Finally, as there was no other way out of it, I consented, and, having obtained the necessary permit, the body was exhumed and to my inexpressible relief the absurdity of the young man's dream was proven. The effect on him was magical. He looked sorrowfully on the face of his dead sister a moment and then burst into a flood of tears, and, throwing his arm around my neck, he wept from pure excess of joy.

—The Kellogg Enterprise, Kellogg, Iowa, December 20, 1889, page 1.