Buried Alive

"A Halloween Stunt Goes Wrong in the
Least Surprising Way Possible"

The Legend:
A teenager manages to provide the Halloween show
he's in with the ultimate finale when, while pretending
to hang himself in front of the audience, he actually
hangs himself.

The Truth:
While the fine citizens of Frederica we discussed were
perhaps a bit slow on the uptake, the people involved
in this hanging-related legend are on the dip-crap
honor roll. Mainly because it's happened more than once.

Yes, people have repeatedly tried to pull off an imitation
hanging for a Halloween show, forgot to include the
"imitation" part and went ahead and accidentally killed
themselves. Yes, they were pretty much all teenage males.

In one instance, an entire working gallows was built for
a show, with the "victim" secured by a harness so that
he'd stop just short of actually being hung (take a wild
guess how that turned out). Now we're just thinking
aloud here, but if we were standing on a gallows, fake
or not, with a rope around our necks, we'd want to take
a few precautions. For example, and again just blue-
skying, maybe don't use a real rope that is tied into a
real noose that is wrapped around your real neck in a
way that could really kill you.

Perhaps the saddest thing about the story was how
completely unnecessary the whole thing was. Here's
a tip for anyone trying to thrill kids on Halloween in the
future: You don't need to hang yourself. Just give out
full-sized chocolate bars instead of those not-so-fun
"fun-sized" ones. We can guarantee the tykes will be
talking about the house that gave out full-sized Snickers
bars long after some life-risking stunt was forgotten.

***************************************************

"Buried Alive"

The Legend:
Some poor schmuck is committed to his or her eternal
resting place, even though they aren't quite ready to take
that final dirt nap. Scratch marks are later found on the
coffin lid along with other desperate signs of escape.

The Truth:
This not only happened, but back in the day it happened
with alarming regularity. In the late 19th century, William
Tebb tried to compile all the instances of premature burial
from medical sources of the day. He managed to collect
219 cases of near-premature burial, 149 cases of actual
premature burial and a dozen cases where dissection
or embalming had begun on a not-yet-deceased body.

Now, this may seem ridiculous, but keep in mind this was
an era before doctors such as the esteemed Dr. Gregory
House gained the ability to solve any ailment within 42
minutes. If you went to the doctor with the flu in those days,
he'd likely cover you in leeches and prescribe you heroin to
suppress your cough. Their only method for determining if
a person had died was to lean over their face and scream
"WAKE UP" over and over again. If you didn't react, they
buried you.

The concern over being Buried Alive back then was so
real that the must-have hot-ticket item for the wealthy and
paranoid were "safety coffins" that allowed those inside
to signal to the outside world (usually by ringing a bell or
raising some type of flag) should they awake 6-feet under.
Though, answering that bell sounds like a good way to
get ambushed by a zombie if you ask us.

Unfortunately, safety coffins aren't in vogue anymore, so
if you're at the cemetery and hear a muffled voice calling
out "OK guys, joke's over. Let me out!" it might be a good
idea to inform someone with a shovel quickly.

Of course, that last sentence was merely facetious, there's
no way something like this could still happen today. Uh,
well, except for this story about a Venezuelan man waking
up during his autopsy. On second thought, you might want
to consider adding a line in your will that states you're to be
buried with a gas-powered auger in your casket when you go.
Received on Wed Jan 30 04:11:18 2008