Woman, Thought Dead, Nearly Buried Alive

It’s the stuff of horror novels and books… a person presumed dead, is buried alive and awakes in a sealed coffin. But it was a real event for a 76 year old woman in Ecuador.

The woman was in a hospital after having a stroke. Hospital workers say they tried all conventional means of resuscitating her and when everything failed, she was declared deceased.

It was at her wake that her son heard a noise coming from the closed sarcophagus and hitting it with her hand.

The Ecuadorian Minister of Health says officials have launched an investigation and are looking into the incident.

Popular belief has it that the reason a ‘wakew’ was instituted was just for that very possibility. The family would watch the coffin for a prescribed time in case the person ‘woke up’ and could be rescued.

In some cases, bells were installed above ground with a string attacked to the corpse so someone could alert the surface if they were still alive when they were buried.

-Tony Lee