20 Historical Figures Who Were Buried Alive by Mistake

This 17th-century tea enthusiast was declared dead after drinking a large amount of poppy water, but she was actually in a deep chemical sleep. After her family intervened—and while she was in a coma induced by chemicals—she was buried while still fast asleep. The next day, after some children heard her screaming from her grave, she was exhumed.

This famous medieval philosopher woke up outside his coffin some time after his burial. Witnesses reported that he had tried to climb out with his bare hands. Scotus suffered from a condition that could cause symptoms similar to those of death, and his followers buried him without realizing their mistake.

Robert E. Lee’s mother was buried in the family vault after an episode of narcolepsy took a dramatic turn. Three days later, a sexton heard her cries for help while he was delivering flowers to the cemetery. Thanks to this premature burial, Mrs. Lee lived for many more years after her miraculous rescue and gave birth to her famous son.

The day before his funeral, Lawrence fell ill at his London boarding house. Eager to collect his rent, his landlady had him buried. A few hours later, a neighbor heard loud banging coming from inside the cemetery and pulled Cawthorn out of his own coffin.

The Byzantine emperor was left for dead on the battlefield after a crushing defeat, and his enemies believed him to be dead. It turned out that he was merely unconscious, and by the time he regained consciousness, they were already preparing to finish him off. The story suggests that he did not have much time to protest before the situation became irreversible.

In 1894, just as her coffin was being loaded into the hearse, Mrs. Markham woke up. The screams and sudden movements coming from inside the coffin gave the pallbearers quite a hard time that day. According to interviews with Eleanor, she hadn’t felt a thing until the shaking began during the car ride to the cemetery.

Every year, a village in England celebrates “Old Matt’s Day,” because this lucky man escaped being buried alive in the 16th century. As his pallbearers were carrying him to his grave, one of them slipped on wet leaves and dropped the coffin. The sudden jolt woke Matthew, who went on to live for several more decades after this fortuitous rescue.

Through a strange turn of events, Margorie McCall was actually buried twice by accident. After being laid to rest with a valuable ring still on her finger, her grave was desecrated that very night. The thieves were unable to remove the ring. Frightened by the screams of Margorie McCall, who had woken with a start, the burglars fled.

Politician Thomas Thynn is another documented case of a person buried alive in England. While Thynn’s death is well documented, legends recount that heavy footsteps were heard coming from his grave several hours after his burial. It is said that bodies in the condition Thynn’s was in tear off their own shrouds due to rigor mortis.

In South Carolina, a young girl was sealed inside a marble mausoleum after succumbing to a mysterious fever. Years later, when the tomb was reopened to bury another family member, her remains were found curled up against the door. The family eventually left the mausoleum door open at all times, as they could not bear the thought of it happening again.

Motorcyclist Angelo Hays fell into a coma-like state following an accident in the 1930s. An insurance investigator had his body exhumed, suspecting foul play. When the body was discovered, Hays’s body was still warm, even though it had spent two full days in the ground.

This pregnant woman was buried during a yellow fever epidemic because the population was terrified that the disease would spread. When a nurse later claimed to have seen Bobin’s body move before the burial, the coffin was exhumed, revealing a truly heart-wrenching scene. She had, in fact, given birth inside the coffin, but neither she nor the infant survived the lack of air.

The famous chronicler Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary an anecdote about how his mother had nearly been buried before her time. She had fallen into a state that looked exactly like death, but a family member noticed a slight movement just before the coffin lid was nailed shut. One wonders how many other people mentioned in his diaries were, in fact, not as dead as he believed them to be.

A high-ranking church official, the abbess of Auxerre, was sealed inside her stone coffin during her funeral in medieval Europe. Witnesses later claimed that she had banged violently on the lid of her coffin during the burial. She was exhumed and lived for many more years, continuing to pray after that brief stay underground.

After losing her young son, Octavia sank into a deep depression that eventually plunged her into a coma, which the doctors mistook for death. Her husband hastily buried her in the summer heat of Kentucky, but he soon noticed that other locals were waking up from a similar “sleeping sickness.” Panicked, he dug her up, but unfortunately, he arrived a few hours too late to save her.

The English statesman Sir Robert Naunton was nearly killed by his own gravediggers. A few minutes after being buried, Naunton woke up and began asking for a glass of water. As one might imagine, his assistants checked quite a few corpses after that incident.

Mary Norreys, a woman who lived in Tudor England, had the lid of her coffin locked shut instead of nailed down. When the priest officiating at her funeral noticed that her eyes were moving, he shouted for the coffin to be lifted. It was fortunate that this priest had been so attentive to detail during the ceremony.

Although he himself had not been buried alive, the count became obsessed with the idea after witnessing a young girl narrowly escape that fate. He invented a “safety coffin” equipped with a bell and a breathing tube so that people could call for help if they woke up in the dark. His invention was a huge hit with a paranoid public, even though it didn’t always work as advertised.

In the 1860s, a young French woman was declared dead from cholera and buried barely six hours after her presumed death. As he was finishing the mound, the gravedigger heard knocking and hurried to dig her out. She was still alive when they found her, but the trauma of the experience was so great that she died the next day.

A famous historical anecdote tells of a monk who was laid to rest in the monastery’s crypt, only to be found, a few weeks later, in a different position. The monks then realized that he had regained consciousness and had tried to free himself from the stone chamber. This event prompted the monastery to change its funeral customs to ensure that no one else would ever meet such a lonely end.