Inventions are inspired by the problems and aspirations of the time they are made. They are also inspired by the fears. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many people were terrified by the thought of being buried alive, and there was good reason for this. Although cremation and embalming existed, most people were simply washed, dressed, and buried at home. They were also buried quickly, typically within three days after death, to avoid decomposition. It is likely that, for many people, a physician capable of examining the body was not available, and even if there was, the medical equipment used at the time made it difficult for a physician to distinguish actual death from diseases, such as catalepsy, that mimic death.

In 1896, William Tebb and Edward Vollum prepared a book describing dozens of cases of premature burial and narrow escapes reported in newspapers and journal articles. However, the most dramatic, and I suspect slightly embellished, account of premature burial occurred a little later, in 1915, and involved a woman named Essie Dunbar. As recently retold, Essie’s body had been placed in a coffin, the coffin had been placed in a grave and the process of covering it with earth had been completed. At that precise moment, Essie’s sister arrived and begged to see Essie one last time. The coffin was raised and upon opening the lid, Ms. Dunbar sat up and smiled. She lived until 1955 when she “died” for the second and final time.

Not surprisingly, horror stories of this type led to a proliferation of patents that offered avenues of escape or rescue for people interred before their time. Representative of these “safety coffins” is one invented by Franz Vester and patented in 1868 (US 81,437)

The elements in the Vester coffin are, to differing degrees and with some variation, typical of nearly all of the safety coffins. As shown above, the coffin has a tower (B) that attaches to the top lid of the coffin (A) directly over the face and upper body of the presumptive corpse. At the site of the tower’s attachment to the cover, there is an open square or rectangular section (C) large enough for the interred person to pass through and likely surprise any visitors to the cemetery who happen to be present at the time. This tower extends upward, and, in use, its top (E) would be just above the soil used to cover the coffin. The top is attached to the tower so that it can be opened from someone inside and is fitted with a glass plate to allow a person standing over the burial site to observe the face of the interred person at the bottom of the tower and vice versa. An opening near the top of the tower permits air passage from the outside environment into the coffin. There are rungs along an inside wall of the tower to provide a ladder for a prematurely buried person to climb out. In the event that the person is too weak to do so, the invention includes a rope (F) that, at the time of interment, is wrapped around the hand of the person being buried and is attached to a bell near the top of the tower. Thus, the bell could be rung by the buried person to provide those listening with a clue that the funeral may have been a little early.

In more recent times, it appears that our focus may have changed from avoiding the consequences of premature burial to simply entertaining corpses. US 7,765,656 (issued August 3, 2010) and US 9,226,059 (issued December 29, 2015) describe audio systems that transmit recorded messages or music to a corpse-filled coffin. It is even possible for a corpse and his girlfriend to enjoy a few songs together:

Figure 1 from U.S. 9,226,059

Although safety coffins may have succeeded in alleviating some of the fear associated with premature burial, there do not appear to be any documented cases in which one of these devices actually rescued someone. And even for those people who narrowly avoided burial, escape was not permanent….