Or, you know... check their vital signs...

It's a trick. Get an ax.

Repeat from the late 1700's.

Coffins for Abe Vigoda?

asymptonic: Fun fact. This was a real problem in the 17th century. Prior to the invention of the stethoscope, there were many conditions that could render a person "dead" as far as doctors could ascertain (drowning in cold water, deep coma, etc). Horrifying cases of people awakening during funerals, or worse, screaming just after burial caused inventors to look for solutions to the problem to comfort the families of the recently departed.

/The more you know!

Wasn't this also the reason for holding a Wake?

I thought the Ejector Coffin would be impossible to beat, but the Coffin Torpedo takes the cake.

asymptonic: Fun fact. This was a real problem in the 17th century. Prior to the invention of the stethoscope, there were many conditions that could render a person "dead" as far as doctors could ascertain (drowning in cold water, deep coma, etc). Horrifying cases of people awakening during funerals, or worse, screaming just after burial caused inventors to look for solutions to the problem to comfort the families of the recently departed.

/The more you know!

Bee stings.

Safety For the Dead!!!!

Malacon: asymptonic: Fun fact. This was a real problem in the 17th century. Prior to the invention of the stethoscope, there were many conditions that could render a person "dead" as far as doctors could ascertain (drowning in cold water, deep coma, etc). Horrifying cases of people awakening during funerals, or worse, screaming just after burial caused inventors to look for solutions to the problem to comfort the families of the recently departed.

/The more you know!

Wasn't this also the reason for holding a Wake?


How about embalming?

/yeah, sure, it's for preservation purposes.

Why not link to the real page instead of the Gizmodo "article"?

The spirit is risin'

/approves



/also approves

Leishu: It's a trick. Get an ax.

Goodie little two shoes!

In the 1890s one of my great aunts on my father's side was unintentionally buried alive (think Fall of the House of Usher, the cause of her catatonic state has never been determined)

This was discovered when she was exhumed in the 1920s to retrieve some family heirloom legend had she'd been buried with (stay classy ancestors!).

Upon opening the casket, her corpse was found with the hands up on either side of the head, covered in the padding she'd ripped out of the lid of the casket, nail marks dug deep into the wood.

/CSB, and true
//love living life with a perpetual ability to one-up peoples 'shocking' stories at parties

I liked the story in last years holloween thrad where the person asking to be exhumed had been burried for six months and the graveyard worker said whatever you are you're not coming up.

Ecliptic: In the 1890s one of my great aunts on my father's side was unintentionally buried alive (think Fall of the House of Usher, the cause of her catatonic state has never been determined)

This was discovered when she was exhumed in the 1920s to retrieve some family heirloom legend had she'd been buried with (stay classy ancestors!).

Upon opening the casket, her corpse was found with the hands up on either side of the head, covered in the padding she'd ripped out of the lid of the casket, nail marks dug deep into the wood.

/CSB, and true
//love living life with a perpetual ability to one-up peoples 'shocking' stories at parties

Comments in TFA seem to confirm that it was more common than you would hope. Especially durring ages of plagues.

Of course embalming today removes that risk. I'm still curious how often (if ever) people wake up at embalming or don't wake up and are killed by the embalming process.