A Brief History
On August 22, 1880, The London Telegraph published an allegedly true story claiming that, believe it or not, people can be buried alive and still survive!
Digging Deeper
To support the article’s claims, they provided an example concerning the fakir Haridas. A fakir is a holy man, usually a Muslim.
In 1835, at the maharaja’s palace in Lahore, India, Haridas spent 40 days locked in a sealed chest. It is said that Haridas fasted for seven days before the big moment. He also swallowed and then reproduced a 27 meter long strip of linen to clean out his stomach. After sealing his nose and ears with wax to protect them from curious insects, he rolled back his tongue to seal his throat and relaxed. Within seconds he was physically ‘dead’.
When Haridas woke up 40 days later, he was shriveled and stiff, but after an hour’s massage, he returned to normal. And, as a reward from his magnificent feat, he received a gift of diamonds from an impressed maharajah.
This example is not the only account of people who chose to be buried alive.
In Europe in the middle Ages, for example, to be buried alive was common and legal punishment. Many monks, nuns and girls of noble blood preferred to be bricked up and starved to death, rather than face the shame of public execution.
In some cultures, if a husband died, his still-living wife was buried right with him! This was likely not be by choice and must have been gruesome. Maybe it was those cultures’ way to try to prevent wives from “hastening” the demise of their spouses, or maybe it was because they were believed to be the property of their spouses. It is also possible that this ensured that the wife would not need to be supported by the dead man’s heirs or even contest the inheritance. At any rate, these societies were obviously patriarchal and not friendly to the rights of women. Of course, it is likely not very many of these wives buried with husbands survived.
Being buried alive was all too common before the fairly recent advancements in medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries. People were often declared dead just because their vitals, which modern-day machines can now determine with near certainty, could not always be ascertained back then. This was so common, in fact, that people were sometimes buried with a horn or other means of notification should they, for example, awaken out of their coma under the ground. Furthermore, there had been many incidents of coffins being reopened and scratch marks found in them from the person desperately trying to get out. Talk about a horrifying way to die!
Other people have been buried alive by accidents such as building collapse and mine or cave cave in. Often enough, some victims have been pulled out of rubble or from deep within the Earth alive, having survived a harrowing incident. In 2018 a Thai soccer coach, age 25, took 12 of his juvenile (age 11-17) team members on a hike into a large cave complex, despite posted warnings to stay out of the cave during the rainy season. As you know or could easily guess, the rains came and the soccer team was stranded an incredible 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) from the cave entrance, marooned by high water. Believed to probably be dead after 9 days underground, the boys and their coach were found alive. In spite of daunting difficulties, an international massive rescue effort succeeded in getting all 13 victims out of the cave as the entire world watched with bated breath.
In 2010 and even larger group was trapped underground when 33 miners in Chile were entombed by a collapse of the copper and gold mine they were working in on August 5, 2010. Rescue efforts began almost immediately, but rescuers found alternate passages to also be blocked by rockfalls. Only 2 days after the collapse, another collapse struck the mine, seeming to seal the fate of the trapped miners. Bore holes were drilled into areas rescuers believed the miners might be sheltering, but those efforts were severely hampered by out of date and inaccurate mine maps. Finally, on August 22, 2010, 17 days after the collapse, a bore hole yielded positive results, and the 33 miners were found! Not only had the brave miners endured more than 2 weeks, they had the presence of mind to put notes on the drill bit when it appeared in their sanctuary. The desperate miners also banged on the drill bit to let rescuers know they were still alive. Did we mention the miners were found 2257 feet below the surface of the Earth? (Wow!) Despite delirious happiness at being found, the miners were in for another not so good surprise. Rescue efforts would take time. How much time, you ask? How about they were not finally freed from their rock tomb until October 13, 2010, spending a whopping 39 days trapped underground! While trapped the miners behaved with magnificent courage, conducting one-man-one-vote elections to assign jobs and maintain order. During the period they awaited rescue video equipment allowed family, friends and the world see the miners buried under millions of tons of rock. Food and water were passed through the bore holes as well. The miners were taken to a hospital and were all eventually released, more or less healthy after their terrible ordeal.
Question for students (and subscribers): Could you survive being buried alive? Would you panic, or never give up until you could no longer move? Would you wait for rescue or take action yourself? Feel free to comment on any aspect of being buried alive and to tell us interesting tales of such incidents that you might be aware of in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please read…
Bondeson, Jan. Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear. W. W. Norton & Company, 2002.