Amazing story in Yekaterinburg. The man, whom his family saw off on his last journey with a lavish funeral and wake, has returned

They buried the whole yard. Someone was taking pictures. He turned out to be alive. Now he looks and listens to the story of his life.

“We arrived, we remembered. And here you are! Some time passes. We even managed to remember 9 days. But it didn’t get to 40. And this comrade appears,” says neighbor Angelina Kochetova.

At the end of April, Alexey disappeared. Two days later, a badly burned body was found near the village. And his relatives identified him as Alexei. He talks about everything with a smile. Apparently, due to his cheerful disposition. There was a case there - I received 150 hours of forced labor, but did not work. Administrative arrest.

“Open the door,” he says, otherwise we’ll break the door down. Well, I opened it. He comes in, get ready, he says, let’s go. I say: “What happened, why did they take me, where?” Let’s go, he says, you’ll find out there.” , - says Alexey Semyonov.

Alexey found out. They were taken to a temporary detention center. But no one warned the relatives. And they first lost him and then buried him. “They took me to the isolation ward. I said there: “I need to call.” They didn’t let me call,” says Alexey Semyonov.

In a telephone conversation, employees of the Penitentiary Service assured that Alexey could call on the very first day. But either he forgot, or was not afraid that he would upset his relatives. Citizen Semyonov nevertheless exercised his right to one call. Unofficially, already from the cell, in a week.

“I called my wife. I called, and she said that they had buried me. I sat down a little. She hung up: “I don’t believe it’s you calling,” recalls Alexey Semyonov.

Alexey was released from the isolation ward on the 16th day. I rushed home. I met my wife and mother-in-law on the street. “My wife’s legs gave way. I said: “Calm down, it’s me, everything’s fine.” I’m alive, everything is fine.” We went home, she was running and running, that it wasn’t me. Then she went to bed in the evening - she seemed to believe it,” says Alexey Semyonov.

Now he will have to convince government authorities that he is alive. Restore your passport and other documents. Now Alexey only has his death certificate in his hands. It will have to be annulled through the court. And the relatives want the money back - 30 thousand for someone else's funeral.

“I have concerns that no one will compensate for the funeral costs, because the person’s guilt must be established. But it turns out there is no guilty person as such. No one forced the relatives to identify this person as their own,” said lawyer Alexey Selivanov.

By the way, now it is up to the police to find out who was buried instead of Alexei Semyonov. He himself went to someone else's grave. He stood there, paused, and unscrewed his photograph.

Today, burying your friend up to his neck in sand on the beach is just a harmless prank. And once upon a time it was a terrible torture or even execution. In both cases, the victim experienced incomparable torment.

Buried alive

Burying a convicted person alive was practiced in many countries. This is how pagan priestesses who violated their vow of virginity were executed in ancient Rome. The priestesses were buried in the ground, having previously provided them with food and water in such quantities that they would last for exactly one day. In Ukraine, a person convicted of murder was buried alive in the same coffin as his victim. And in the Middle Ages in Italy, criminals who did not repent of the murders they committed were buried.

At the dawn of Christianity, many Christian saints were executed in the same way by pagans, who later received the title of martyrs.

Up to your neck in the ground

In addition to burial alive, there was another, more painful type of execution. This is burying the criminal up to his neck in the ground. This was the case with some convicts in the 17th – 18th centuries in Russia. Such punishment was provided mainly for women who took the lives of their own husbands. This was even spelled out in the code of laws “Cathedral Code”, dating back to 1649: “... a wife commits murder to her husband or feeds him poison, for which she will be executed - buried alive in the ground until she dies.”

Immediately before the execution, a deep and narrow hole was dug in a public place, fenced with a low fence so that onlookers could observe the torment of the victim. The condemned woman's hands were tied behind her back and then lowered into the ground. The gaps between the body and the walls of the pit were filled with soil, which was immediately compacted carefully using wooden hammers or stakes.

A guard was on duty around the clock around the clock until her death. He did not allow compassionate citizens who tried to secretly give the victim food or water to the convict. All that was allowed to be left near the head sticking out of the ground was candles and small money for the coffin.

How did the convict die?

Usually the victim of this kind of execution died long and painfully: from several hours to several days. On average, women lasted no more than 4-6 days. However, historians became aware of one case when a certain Euphrosyne, sentenced to death in 1731, lived in the ground for exactly a month. However, scientists are inclined to think that someone fed Euphrosyne, or at least gave her something to drink.

The most common cause of death in women was dehydration. However, the convicts suffered not only from thirst. The fact is that the compacted soil compressed the chest, and it was almost impossible to take a normal breath. In addition, the guards monitored the condition of the pit and trampled the earth more and more densely every day. That is why the second cause of death of the condemned woman was asphyxia, that is, suffocation.

In addition, the cool earth often caused hypothermia, which caused additional suffering to the victim.

), where the main character comes to his senses and discovers that he is buried alive in a wooden box, where oxygen is gradually running out. You can hardly imagine a worse situation. And those who watched this film to the end will agree with this.

Still from the film “Buried Alive,” directed by Rodrigo Cortes.

So, let's look at a few simple rules that would help you survive if you find yourself in a similar situation. I would like to hope that this will never happen to any of us, but it is worth remembering a few rules and relying only on yourself.

1. Don't waste air. In a classic coffin, the air supply is for an hour, maximum two. Inhale deeply, exhale slowly. After inhaling, do not swallow, this causes hyperventilation. Do not light matches or a lighter, this takes away oxygen, but it is not forbidden to use a flashlight. Don’t scream: screaming increases panic, increases heart rate and breathing, and therefore increases air consumption.
2. Loosen the lid with your hands; in the cheapest fiberboard coffins you can even make a hole (with a wedding ring, a belt buckle...)
3. Cross your arms over your chest, grabbing your shoulders with your palms and pull your shirt up and tie it in a knot above your head; Hanging like a bag on your head, it will protect you from suffocation when you hit the ground in your face.
4. Knock the lid down with your feet. Cheap coffins tend to break under the weight of the earth immediately after they are buried!
5. As soon as the lid breaks, direct the earth from your head to your feet; when there is little space, try to press the earth in different directions with your feet.
6. By all means try to sit down, the earth will fill the empty space and shift in your favor, do not stop and continue to breathe calmly.
7. Get up!

And remember the main thing: the soil in a fresh grave is always loose and “it’s relatively easy to fight with it.” It’s much more difficult to get out during rain: wet soil is denser and heavier. The same can be said about clay.

Buried alive

It is no coincidence that in almost all nations it is customary to hold a burial ceremony not immediately, but after a certain number of days after death. There were many cases when “dead people” came to life at funerals, and there were also cases when they woke up inside the coffin. Since ancient times, man has been afraid of being buried alive. Taphophobia - the fear of being buried alive is observed in many people. It is believed that this is one of the basic phobias of the human psyche. According to the laws of the Russian Federation, the deliberate burial of a person alive is considered murder committed with extreme cruelty and is punished accordingly.

Imaginary death

Lethargy is an unexplored painful condition that is similar to a normal dream. Even in ancient times, signs of death were considered to be the absence of breathing and the cessation of heartbeat. However, in the absence of modern equipment, it was difficult to determine where the imaginary death was and where the real one was. Nowadays there are practically no cases of funerals of living people, but a couple of centuries ago this was a fairly common occurrence. Lethargic sleep usually lasts from several hours to several weeks. But there are cases when lethargy lasted for months. Lethargic sleep differs from coma in that the human body maintains the vital functions of organs and is not under threat of death. There are many examples of lethargic sleep and related issues in the literature, but they do not always have a scientific basis and are often fictional. Thus, H.G. Wells’s science fiction novel “When the Sleeper Awake” tells about a man who “slept” for 200 years. This is certainly impossible.

Scary awakening

There are quite a lot of stories when people plunged into a state of lethargic sleep; let’s focus on the most interesting ones. In 1773, a terrible incident occurred in Germany: after the burial of a pregnant girl, strange sounds began to be heard from her grave. It was decided to dig up the grave and everyone who was there was shocked by what they saw. As it turned out, the girl began to give birth and as a result came out of a state of lethargic sleep. She was able to give birth in such cramped conditions, but due to lack of oxygen, neither the baby nor his mother managed to survive.

Premature burial, Antoine Wirtz (1806-1865).

Another story, but not so terrible, happened in England in 1838. One official was always afraid of being buried alive and, as luck would have it, his fear materialized. A respected man woke up in a coffin and started screaming. At that moment, a young man was passing through the cemetery, who, hearing the man’s voice, ran for help. When the coffin was dug and opened, people saw the dead man with a frozen, eerie grimace. The victim died a few minutes before being rescued. Doctors diagnosed him with cardiac arrest; the man could not withstand such a terrible awakening to reality.

There were people who perfectly understood what lethargic sleep was and what to do if such a misfortune overtook them. For example, the English playwright Wilkie Collins was afraid that he would be buried while he was still alive. There was always a note near his bed, which spoke of the measures that should be taken before his burial.

Method of execution

Burial alive was used as a method of capital punishment by the ancient Romans. For example, if a girl broke her vow of virginity, she was buried alive. A similar method of execution was used for many Christian martyrs. In the 10th century, Princess Olga gave the order to bury the Drevlyan ambassadors alive. During the Middle Ages in Italy, unrepentant murderers faced the fate of people buried alive. The Zaporozhye Cossacks buried the murderer alive in a coffin with the person whom he had taken the life of. In addition, the Germans used methods of execution through burial alive during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The Nazis executed Jews using this terrible method.

Ritual burials

It is worth noting that there are cases when people, of their own free will, find themselves buried alive. Thus, certain peoples of South America, Africa and Siberia have a ritual in which people bury the shaman of their village alive. It is believed that during the “pseudo-funeral” ritual, the healer receives the gift of communication with the souls of deceased ancestors.

The past centuries contain many cases when a person was buried alive. These are, for example, pagan rituals, doctors’ mistakes, lack of knowledge of ordinary people and various superstitions. And only a small part ends with the happy salvation of the victim. Therefore, many Western countries have maintained the tradition of leaving a bell with a rope on the grave. This method is designed to ensure safety in the event of a person being buried alive, and to give hope for a speedy rescue.

An interesting fact is that Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was always afraid of being buried alive. The fear of a painful death was strong, and the classic bequeathed to his friends to bury him, waiting for signs of decomposition of the body to appear. History confirmed his fears.

Incredible story of when a person was buried alive

Tragedy through the ages

The chronicle of the world contains many terrible events that are more frightening than the works of Edgar Allan Poe, the cult author who worked in the horror genre. Previously, people were often buried within the shortest time possible. Hot days contributed to the rapid decomposition of bodies, so coroners did not wait for the corpse to begin to smolder.

The second half of the 19th century was hit by an epidemic of an unknown disease that swept through the town of Pikeville, USA. Unfortunately for James Hatcher's family, the disease was discovered too late. The first person to become infected was James’s young wife, Octavia Smith. The girl fell into a long-term coma, doctors declared death. When the disease began to spread, the widower ordered the exhumation of the body. A terrible sight appeared before him: it turned out that his wife was buried alive. After the funeral, she woke up, began to struggle, and was even able to move the coffin lid. But Hatcher did not have time to save his wife.

It's scary to think how a medical error can lead to irreparable consequences. The town of Riasan das Nevic was shocked by the news of the terrible death of a young woman. The doctors' report stated that the girl died of septic shock at the age of thirty-seven. The funeral took place, residents began to hear incessant screams from the cemetery. The people who opened the coffin were presented with a terrible sight: the lid of the coffin was scratched with nails, the hands of the deceased were covered with abrasions. Rosangela Almeida dos Santos was in the grave for eleven days, after which she died.

Miraculous Rescue

Sometimes, tragic accidents manage to be resolved before the death of the victim. People who have experienced a “false” death often have to thank their guardian angels.

1937

An insurance agent, while investigating the validity of insurance payments, accidentally saved the life of a nineteen-year-old boy, Angelo Hayes. It was believed that the young man died in a motorcycle accident. Two days after the funeral, the insurance agent exhumed the body for further investigation. Angelo breathed while unconscious. The boy fell into a coma from the blow, which saved him. The incident with Hayes is forever etched in the memory of the people of France. After all, after all, the young boy invented a coffin, equipped with a supply of food and a radio transmitter, designed to save those buried alive.

1938

A terrible event also shook the town of Lyubertsy near Moscow. Denis Duritsyn, returning home earlier than usual, encountered burglars who broke into his apartment, looking for profit. Having demanded money, the robbers began to torture the guy. Even having received what they needed, they did not calm down and continued to mock the defenseless captive. A little later, the young man was taken to the Tomilino forest park, slashed in the throat with a knife, and thrown into a pit. The hastily dug grave was supposed to be the last refuge of the guy; fortunately for the young man, he was able to leave the earthen trap, reaching people and receiving help. The doctors managed to save Denis.

2013

A resident of Sao Paulo was able to save a man who was buried alive. A woman, coming to visit her deceased relatives, heard suspicious sounds coming from the grave. The arriving police unearthed an exhausted, knife-wielding man.

Wake up in the morgue

It happens that a person has not yet been buried alive, but is declared dead and is in the morgue. Such cases are rare in medicine, but they are called Lazarus syndrome.

A total of 38 cases of resurrection have been officially registered.

1993

An accident in 1993 dramatically changed the fate of Sipho William Mdletshe. The injuries received by the young man in the accident were so severe that he was declared dead. While in a freezer container at a Johannesburg morgue, Mdletshe recovered and began calling for help. The man’s fiancee couldn’t believe that he was still alive and not resurrected as a “zombie.” The wedding of the once happy couple was cancelled.

1994

The body of 86-year-old Mildred Clark was found in her apartment. The neighbors' attention was attracted by a specific smell coming from behind the doors of the home of a lonely, elderly woman. The old woman, without signs of life, was redirected to the morgue, where her remains were awaiting their turn to be examined for death. Some time passed, M. Clarke's legs began to twitch. Doctors were called and examined the pensioner; the death of the old woman turned out to be false.

1995

Jujit Johnson died at age 61 at Beebe Medical Center. Attempts to resuscitate the woman failed, her heart did not beat, doctors, having declared death, transferred the body to the morgue. Employees accidentally discovered breathing on the “corpse”. After experiencing a miraculous “resurrection,” the Johnson family filed a lawsuit against the medical center.

1996

Walter Williams died at the age of seventy-eight years. While embalming the body, the old man began to breathe. Relatives considered the incident a true miracle for the family.

Taphophobia (the fear of being buried alive) is still the most popular fear of humanity. The horror that grows from the depths of the soul, from the awareness of being in a confined space, the absence of light, oxygen, is irresistible to man. Medicine is developing, so there remains hope that a time of calm will come, the absence of fatal accidents leading to a terrible tragedy. After all, now such cases almost never occur.

Taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive, is one of the most common human phobias. And there are quite good reasons for this. Due to the mistakes of doctors or the illiteracy of ordinary people, such cases occurred quite often before the normal development of medicine, and sometimes happen in our time. This article contains 10 incredible but absolutely real stories of people buried alive who still managed to survive.

Janet Philomel.

The story of a 24-year-old French woman named Janet Philomel is most typical of most such cases. In 1867, she fell ill with cholera and died a few days later, as everyone thought. The girl was given the funeral service by the local priest according to all the rules; her body was placed in a coffin and buried in the cemetery. Nothing unusual.

Strange things began when, a few hours later, the cemetery worker was finishing the burial. Suddenly he heard a knock coming from underground. They began to dig up the coffin, simultaneously sending for a doctor. The doctor who arrived actually discovered a weak heartbeat and breathing in the girl, raised from her own grave. And on her hands there were fresh abrasions received from the fact that she was trying to get out. True, this story ended tragically. A few days later, the girl died for real. Most likely due to cholera. But perhaps also because of the nightmare she experienced. This time the doctors and priests tried to carefully make sure that she was really dead.

Unknown from Sao Paulo.

In 2013, a woman living in Sao Paulo, visiting her family gravestone at the cemetery, witnessed a truly horrifying picture. Nearby, she noticed a man who was desperately trying to get out of the grave. He did this with difficulty. The man had already freed one arm and head by the time local workers arrived to him.

After the unfortunate man was completely dug up, he was taken to the hospital, where it turned out that he was an employee of the city hall. It is not known for certain how it happened that the man was buried alive. It is believed that he was the victim of a fight or attack, after which he was considered dead and buried to get rid of evidence. Relatives claimed that after the incident, the man suffered from mental disorders.

Baby from Dongdong province.

In a remote Chinese village in Dongdong province, there lived a pregnant girl named Lu Xiaoyan. The medical situation in the village was very bad: there were no doctors, the nearest hospital was several kilometers away. Naturally, no one monitored the girl’s pregnancy. Around the fourth month, Lu suddenly felt contractions. Everyone expected the baby to be stillborn. And so it happened: the baby that was born showed no signs of life.

After giving birth, the girl’s husband realized that she would most likely need professional medical help, so he called an ambulance. While Lu was being taken to the nearest hospital by car, her mother was burying the child in a field. However, at the hospital it turned out that the girl was not in her fourth, but in her sixth month of pregnancy, and the doctors, assuming that the child could survive, demanded to bring him. Lu's husband returned, dug up the tiny girl and brought her to the hospital. Surprisingly, the girl managed to get out.

Mike Mainey.

Mike Mainey is a famous Irish bartender who asked to be buried alive to set a kind of world record. In 1968, in London, Mike was placed in a special coffin equipped with a hole through which air entered. With the help of the same hole, food and drink were passed to the man. It's hard to believe, but in total Mike was buried for 61 days. Since then, many have tried to break this record, but no one has succeeded.

Anthony Britton.

Another magician who voluntarily allowed himself to be buried in the ground in order to get out of the grave on his own. However, unlike Mike, he was buried without a coffin, at a standard depth of 2 meters. In addition, his hands were handcuffed. As planned, Anthony was supposed to repeat Houdini's trick, but things didn't go according to plan.

The magician spent almost nine minutes underground. For the rescuers on duty above, this was the extreme threshold for starting active actions. They quickly dug up the poor fellow, who was in a half-dead state. They managed to pump Britton out. He subsequently said in various interviews that he was unable to complete his stunt because his hands were pinned to the ground. But worst of all, after each exhalation, the earth continued to squeeze his chest more and more, not allowing him to breathe.

Baby from Compton.

Just recently, in November 2015, two women were walking in a park in Compton, a small city in California. Suddenly, while walking, they heard a strange child's cry, coming as if from underground. Frightened, they immediately called the police.

Arriving law enforcement officers dug up a very small child, no more than two days old, under the asphalt of the bicycle path. Fortunately, the police quickly took the little girl to the hospital and her life was saved. Interestingly, the baby was wrapped in a hospital blanket, which allowed detectives to quickly determine when and where she was born, as well as identify the mother. A warrant was immediately issued for her arrest. She is now accused of attempted murder and child endangerment.

Tom Guerin.

The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1849 resulted in a huge number of deaths. Gravediggers in those days had a lot of work, and there wasn’t enough space to bury everyone. They had to bury many people and, naturally, sometimes mistakes happened. Such, for example, as with Tom Guerin, a 13-year-old boy who was mistakenly taken for dead and buried alive.

The boy was declared dead, brought to the cemetery, like many others, and began to be buried, in the process accidentally breaking his legs with shovels. It’s amazing, but the boy not only survived, but also managed to get out of the grave with broken legs. Witnesses claim that Tom Guerin subsequently limped on both legs for the rest of his life.

Child from Tian Dong.

A terrifying story occurred in May 2015 in one of the southern Chinese provinces. A woman who was collecting herbs near the cemetery suddenly heard the barely audible cry of a child. Frightened, she called the police, who discovered a baby buried alive in the cemetery. The baby was quickly taken to the hospital, where he soon recovered.

During the investigation, it turned out that the parents, who did not want to raise a child born with a cleft lip, put the baby in a cardboard box and took it to the cemetery. After several days, the relatives came to the cemetery and, thinking that the child was already dead, buried him at a shallow depth of several centimeters. As a result, the boy spent 8 days underground and survived only because oxygen and water penetrated the layer of mud. According to police, when the boy was dug up, the child was literally coughing up dirty water.

Natalya Pasternak.

A terrible incident occurred in May last year in the city of Tynda. Two local residents, Natalya Pasternak and her friend Valentina Gorodetskaya, traditionally collected birch sap near the city. At this time, a four-year-old bear came out of the forest towards Natalya, who, considering the woman her prey, attacked her.

The bear partially scalped her, left a deep wound in her thigh, and seriously injured her neck. Fortunately, Valentina managed to call rescuers. By the time they arrived, the bear had already buried Natalya, who was in a state of shock, as they usually do with their victims, in order to leave it for later. Rescuers had to shoot the animal. Natalya was dug up and taken to the hospital. Since then, she has undergone many operations, and her recovery is still ongoing.

Essie Dunbar.

30-year-old Essie died in 1915 from a severe attack of epilepsy. At least that's what the doctors said. The girl was declared dead and funeral preparations began. Sister Essie really wanted to be present at the ceremony and categorically forbade the burial to begin until she personally said goodbye to the deceased. The priests delayed the service as much as they could.

The coffin had already been lowered into the grave when Sister Essie finally arrived. She insisted that the coffin be lifted and opened so she could say goodbye to her sister. However, as soon as the coffin lid opened, Essie stood up and smiled at her sister. Those present at the funeral rushed out of there in panic, believing that the girl's spirit had risen from the dead. Even many years later, some townspeople believed that she was a walking corpse. Essie lived until 1962.