How to Survive Being Buried Alive in a Coffin

Today I found out how to survive being buried alive in a coffin.  Yesterday, I posted an article on taphophobia and I got an email from a reader wondering if I could write-up an article on the best ways to actually get out of a coffin, if you happen to find yourself buried alive in one.  So here goes.

First, DON’T PANIC!  Seriously, panicking will drastically reduce the time you have to work yourself out of this jam.  You’ll use up all your oxygen quite quickly in this state and you likely don’t have a lot of time to start with.  Typically you could survive for one or two hours before using up your oxygen, as long as you don’t panic.  If you happen to be good at meditating, you could last quite a bit longer, such as the case of this man who survived nearly two hours on the air trapped in his helmet.  But of course in his case, he had people digging him out.  If you don’t think anyone is coming to dig you out, then putting yourself in a deep meditative state probably wouldn’t help you be able to extradite yourself from the situation; this would only prolong the inevitable.  Now try to relax yourself as much as possible.  The more relaxed you are, the longer you have to get yourself out and the clearer you will think.

Now, from here there are a few things you might do depending on your apparent situation. First, check to see what you have on you.  Increasingly these days, people are burying other people with their cell phones for some so that they can call them, at least while the battery lasts.  Personally, I think this is a little more depressing than anything, calling and never having them answer.  But this is good if your relatives did this.  If you’ve got this, flip it on and hope you have a signal and good battery life.  Once you get a hold of someone and you know they are coming, practice meditating and relaxing as much as possible to conserve oxygen.  Talking to them at length is not a good idea.  This will use up a lot of oxygen.  Make sure they know this is not a hoax and they are coming with everything from a shovel to the National Guard, then hang up and relax.  One simple meditation anyone can master is to simply repeat some word over and over again in your head slowly; might I suggest “Vacca Foeda”.

Don’t have a cell phone?  If your relatives were cheap, they buried you in a nice flimsy coffin.  This is nearly the best case scenario.  If you get out of this, you’ll be forever thankful for the cheap construction of your presumed final resting place.  Given the weight of the 6 feet or so of earth above you, your coffin might have already caved in one place or another.  This is a good thing.  If this has happened, you are literally almost home free (unless you are really short, then you have a bit more work to do).  Odds are, considering you are still alive in your coffin with limited air supply, you weren’t buried that long ago.  So the earth should be quite loose.

Now,  take off your shirt most of the way by pulling it up over your head so it comes off inside out, but doesn’t come all the way off (think hockey fight); so that your shirt is basically now just inside out over your head.  Now tie off the shirt at the top so it is sealed.  At this point, you’ve basically made a “bag” out of your shirt that your head is now in.  This is to help protect you from breathing in dirt.

If your coffin hasn’t already been breached by the weight of the earth above, use your legs to kick an opening somewhere in the coffin.  Generally, the best place will be around the middle of the coffin which is usually the weakest point in terms of being able to hold weight.  Best to keep your head and torso close to the opening to make sure you don’t accidentally get stuck in the coffin where you can’t move around because of all the dirt.

If you are buried in a typical cheap coffin, it shouldn’t actually be that hard to breach as the weight of the earth above will already be bowing the top board quite a bit; it is even somewhat likely that the earth has already breached the cheap coffin somewhere, without need of your help;  if you feel dirt in the coffin, thank your lucky stars because the hardest part is accomplished already.   If not, you’ll want to kick has hard as you can to try to get the board flexing.  You won’t be able to move the board much because of the weight of the earth, but that’s fine.  You mainly just want to make that weight of the earth work for you by kicking the board and hopefully having the weight of the earth flex the board down more every time until it breaches.

Once you have successfully breached the coffin, use your legs and hands to push the earth coming in towards the edges of the coffin.  Fill the coffin as much as possible with dirt, packing it in, without losing the ability to be able to get your head and torso out of the hole, head first.

Once you’ve packed in as much dirt as you can, simply get your head near the breach and use all your strength to stand up with your arms straight up; you may need to make the breach bigger as you do so, but this shouldn’t be too hard with a cheap coffin.  As you are doing this, try to get one leg up out of the coffin so you can further push yourself up by standing on the outside parameter edge of the coffin lid.

If you are buried around 6 feet deep and are anywhere from 5 feet tall or above, you should be able to not only have your arms break the surface at this point, but also have your head break the surface due to the fact that you pushed a foot or two of earth into your coffin.  Now getting yourself completely out may take a little time without help, but considering the earth should be fairly lose, should be one of the easier things you just had to do.

Once your head has broken the surface and you can freely breathe, feel free to let yourself panic a bit if you need to and scream your head off, perhaps cackling madly; I mean, you are about 95% there at managing to escape being buried alive.  I think a good healthy manic mad cackle is in order.  Go ahead;  I’ll wait…  Now that that’s done, if no one has come to your rescue, go ahead and worm yourself out as best you can using your arms to pull yourself out, wriggling your body as you go to further loosen the earth holding  you in.

Now you might be saying to yourself, “My relatives aren’t cheap, they’ll bury me in a fancy stainless steel coffin”.  Well, I’m sorry to say, you are probably screwed then.  They wasted a lot of money on an expensive coffin for what they thought was just a carcass and now not only was it a waste of resources, it will spell your ultimate demise.  The best you can do in this case is to try to tap loudly on the metal with some piece of medal such as a belt buckle or the like.  Then hope someone is still hanging around your grave site.  This isn’t totally unlikely considering you couldn’t have been there long considering you still have air to breathe.  Still probably best not to yell at this point as it would quickly diminish your oxygen supply and probably cause you to start panicking.  Best to tap as loud as you can in some pattern, so someone on the surface knows you are still alive.  If you have nothing to tap with, feel free to panic and yell now.  You are probably going to die anyways, might as well go out losing your mind (really, better than going out sane as asphyxiation is not pleasant from all accounts).

If your family was really nice and wealthy, they’ll have buried you in a “safety coffin”.  These coffins are equipped with means of letting yourself out safely or means of notifying the outside world you are in fact still alive.  In either case, these tend to always come with some sort of lighting device that doesn’t consume oxygen, like a flashlight.  Use it and you’ll likely find whatever is needed to allow you to alert the outside world that your death was greatly exaggerated.  Note, it is generally not a good idea to light a match or a lighter if you have one.  Not only might you catch yourself on fire, but you’ll use all the oxygen in the coffin extremely quickly this way.

Now, if you’ve gotten to this point and still haven’t gotten out, you should continue trying the above until you start to feel yourself asphyxiate.  At this point, you have two choices.  First, continue on as before and eventuality succumb to the lack of oxygen.  This is pretty much universally thought of as a pretty horrible way to die as you’ve got plenty of air you’ll be breathing in filling your lungs, but little to no oxygen.  It’s a very slow way to die and quite unpleasant from all accounts.  Second, you could always try to end it a little quicker.  If you’ve got a pen or something handy, feel free to stab yourself in the throat.  One quick thrust to your carotid artery (either on the left or right of your neck, pick one!) and you’ll be dead in no time.  No pen or any other device to bleed yourself with?  Well, you’ve probably got teeth at least…  As this article has turned a bit morbid *ha morbid*, I’ll just say, “use your imagination”.  Don’t have a good imagination?  Think wrists.

There is of course also always the chance of divine intervention.  Even if you aren’t normally a “praying man”, might I suggest that in this case, you’ve got absolutely nothing to lose in becoming one, and who knows maybe even something to gain even if things don’t work out. 😉  I’d recommend avoiding offering God anything if he’ll get you out though.  People do this all the time and it makes no sense.  I mean really, if there is a God, what could you possibly offer him that he doesn’t already have or couldn’t get himself?  It would be like trying to come up with gift ideas for Bill Gates, but times a bagillion.  Better to just ask out of mercy or grace for help and possibly forgiveness of any wrongs you might have done in your lifetime (just in case).  He might feel sorry for you and help it end quicker than normal asphyxiation or help you get out; either is win/win 🙂

Bottom line, what you want to try to do is some how some way make an opening in the coffin large enough for you to fit through.  You do that and you have a good shot at making it out of this alive.  Once you have an opening, unless you are a midget, getting out or at least getting your head above the surface, will literally be as easy as standing up.  If it is raining hard around the time of your burial, things could be more difficult of course.  But by trapping as much earth as possible in the coffin, you should still be able to stand up and break your head free of the surface at the least; from this point, if it’s sufficiently muddy, you may require someone’s aid to extradite yourself the rest of the way.  But at least if you die this way, it won’t be of asphyxiation.  So you’ve improved your situation at the least.  Good luck!

Now may I echo the sentiment that Lord Chesterfield made to his daughter-in-law in a letter on March 16, 1769:

  • “All I desire for my own burial is not to be buried alive”.


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  • …And this is the reason why I want to be cremated.

    • That might actually be worse. If you wake up when they are starting to cremate you.. Ugh, the thought in itself is enough to make one panic

      • this is just for entertainment purposes of course. When you die, they will drain all of the blood from your body which will kill you if you aren’t already dead.

  • I almost wanna give this a try.

    • I couldn’t help but imagine someone lying, buried alive in a coffin, and reading this article on their mobile phone. “Well shit, I’ve been buried alive, but I have my phone. What should I do? Call someone to come help me? Or look up the solution on Google? Google it is!”
      Also, I noted how many people are talking about embalming and concrete liners and stuff, but I found this article very useful in terms of writing. I write a lot of fanfiction and most of it is based in olden times, like when embalming didn’t exist or was too expensive, so this is great for a nice suspenseful chapter of one of my stories.

      • alejandro bufalini

        thats the exact reason why i came here .. it wasnt done by any of my family members just some gang members i dont know anything about them . basically the had a super cheap coffin . i actually thought i was going to die because i woke up not being able to see anything and also a bit of dirt on me and i looked for my phone for some light and then i realised i was in a coffin and obviously i started panicking because i didnt know what to do so i asked google ” help im stuck in a coffin” and this is the first thing that popped up so i clicked it and followed the instructions. i messaged my groupchat and they where good friends of mine but i didnt know where i was so i told them to come to the nearest one near my house but they didnt find me then they went to the other near one and i started knocking super loud so they can hear me. and they did. so luckily theres some people in the yard and they called them to come and help them dig and they where confused and my friends said theres a guy burried alive so they came running . and btw only 4 friends out of 20 in the groupchat came . so they started digging whilst i kept reading what google said so it told me to meditate to consume less oxigen so i did. but luckily they didnt really put alot of dirt back so it didnt take as long but it still took like 30 minutes or maybe it felt like 30 minutes but when i came out it was 5:37 in the afternoon and it was still bright outside and then i slept over at one of my friends’s house and i told them my story . so that was my story .

    • Heck no! Watch the movie Buried

  • Well first of all, those who choose a traditional burial often opt for embalming so you’d be for sure dead when your buried anyhow. Not to mention most cemeteries require the burial of a coffin to be entombed in a vault which is either made from an industrial strength fiberglass or, usually, about six inches of concrete. screwed. Better make sure you’ve filled out a Five Wishes, a legal final document (in most states) that specifically states what you would like done with your body in the event of your death and also what you would like done in the circumstances of a vegetative state. Plan ahead.

  • Obviously none of you are in the funeral industry. I’ll be brief. There are 2 crank holes on a modern caskets. The first crank lowers, and raises the inner bed. The second, locks, and unlocks the lid(s). All from the outside. You can order a custom, with all kinds of add-ons just for people with this paranoia.

    One of these little known features, is a hole in the top of the casket for a sting, tied to a bell outside, and above ground. This is so, if you do wake up, you can just pull the string, and ring the bell.

    As little as 100 years ago, part of the funeral package included a “Sitter” an employee would literally sit and watch the bell for 2-3 days.

    Hence the term “Graveyard Shift.”

  • Excellent, I should try that!
    However, I live in Portugal and if I happen to die here too, then this will never happen because a) everyone gets an autopsy upon death even if there is no suspicion f wrong-doing and b) by default we are all organ donors and I don’t carry a ‘I’m not an organ donor card’.
    So if I’m buried somebody will make sure I will be 100% dead before the funeral. And anyway I prefer being cremated…

  • At first I was really interested in this article. Then, I started to question who would even need to know this information, because people get autopsies and embalmed before burial. Also, why would anyone be buried with a pen? And, although I’ve never performed this feat myself, would it really be that easy to stand up when you’ve got the weight of 6 feet of dirt on top of you? And lastly, the verb you’re looking for is “breathe”, not “breath.”

  • thats scary stuff, if this does (hopefully not !) happen to me , i will find it VERY useful looool

  • Very good information. Provided something doesn’t happen to you (i.e. autopsy or embalming) before you’re buried, this is good to know.

    There’s just one thing. If you’re trapped, and absolutely are going to die, don’t take your teeth to your wrists. That’s not avoiding pain or speeding things up- it’s messy and horrible all on it’s own.

    A much better solution is to simply bite down extremely hard on your own tongue. It’s still unbelieveably painful, but not as much as gnawing through your own wrists, and you’ll bleed out pretty quickly. Still much better than asphyxiation!

  • Okay ummm…lets say your poor and your family isn’t so nice and decides to burrie you in a wooden casket. then what?

  • “feel free to stab yourself in the throat” i lmfaoo!!!

  • I looked this up after watching the movie `Buried’. I had a feeling that the guy should’ve tried poking a head hole and standing up. He screamed a lot and even had a butane lighter. That would’ve ate most his oxygen…

    I have a question though about asphyxiation.I had read when I was younger that a family was travelling with a camper on their truck and the kids were in the camper as they drove. Apparently it was tightly made, all the vents and windows were sealed and over a long portion of the car ride the oxygen was used up. The children had fallen to sleep, and died in their sleep from lack of oxygen.

    Terribly sad story, but that doesn’t sound like a terrible way to die to me. Is it just a lie?

    • I TOO, found this website & subsequent responses, while watching “Buried”! And wow… what an interesting set of instructions is was!!

      Without knowing for sure the exact details of the story you described, it’s difficult to say with absolute certainty, but my initial guess would be that if the children died in such a situation, it was more likely from accumulation of excessive Carbon Monoxide, rather than from the depletion of Oxygen.

  • I am getting cremated and hopefully not while I’m still living!
    I don’t understand why people thing getting cremated is so bad, your most likely already Dead! If you are living at least its quick and ur not sitting there for two hours and suffocating to death!

  • I also looked this up after watching buried and just was wondering would this method work with sand too? or would it be harder to climb out because of the consistency of sound?

  • What about vaults or liners? These days coffins don’t just go into the ground. Sure you might make it out of the coffin, but how are you going to move a cement lid covered with all those pounds of dirt?

  • If I do get buried alive it will most likely be on purpose by those very people I hate so I don’t need to worry about an expensive coffin, cement lids, or any kinds of locks stopping me from trying to live the rest of my life. So i’m good. they might even be stupid enough to make it a shallow grave 🙂 you’ll be reading my story in the news papers soon.

  • @ Carlene,

    I worked in forensics (Romania) and had some extensive crime scene experience. Most of people warm themselves in the winter with butane gas which has a typical smell due to an intentional alteration that would detect its presence in the environment; otherwise, nobody would notice that there is butane gas around and accidents would happen at any step. The open flame that burns the gas usually comes at night in lower pressure, hence, the high risk of suffocation in which the CO2 burns the oxygen of a room. Ever noticed that when you breathe under the blanket, you need at one point to get air because you can’t breathe anymore? That’s how it would feel in a coffin (theoretically). It is true that without ventilation of oxygen from outdoors, people die quickly. The “lucky” ones wake up and don’t make it to the door or window because their central nervous system is annihilated completely. Those who completely succumb to this type of death don’t know that it’s happening to them as they die in their sleep. It’s kind of like the sleepiness feeling taking over when being a passenger in a car, or a buss, especially if toxic exhaust is infiltrating into the cabin. Opening the windows is a must. Knowledge IS power and also the answer over fear in an emergency.

    I saw the movie “Buried” the other day and was really upset with their forensic counselor whose application in the movie might be applied by those who happen to unfortunately be in such a terrible situation just by association. The open flame was a certain no-no. The sad part that i couldn’t believe passed the scrutiny for the movie release is the idiotic system of dealing with automatic machines and people who don’t take emergency calls seriously, considering them hoax calls. The US Coast Guard takes plenty of such calls on a daily basis but the Federal fines are stating the importance of not taking assets and personnel from real emergencies to jokes. In the movie, to add to the injury, the contractor’s liability release recording was an offense in the face of any American; it’s sad that we could arrive to such situations where people in dire situations would agree to record such statements. I, for one, would not have wasted my energy, oxygen and phone battery on such a thing as soon as the guy mentioned the recording. However, I liked that the military avenged Paul even though it was not the best choice of survival for him.

    I am slowly reading survival books but the movie frightened me and followed my thoughts for few days. I like the idea of safety measures in a coffin that do not depend of someone else’s vigilance while on/ off guard.

    Great debate on this article. My thanks to its author!

  • If your worried about this type of thing, watch the movie ‘Buried’ that will fuck you right up

  • i came to this website after watching the movie buried O_O!

  • Im buried alive . Help I’m near gaza help battery low help please harrison smith from oklahoma please send someone I’m telling the truth from mobile please god get me out.

  • I don’t think cellphones work underground. Soil (and the moisture in it) will attenuate the signal.

    This is the same thing that causes your call to drop out when you drive thru a tunnel.

  • this is the dumbest crap i’ve had to suffer reading yet!

    LMFAO! apparently you don’t know how the base diagnostic works when they prepare you for that coffin.

    don’t worry… you’ll be discovered as dead or alive before the embalming… and there’s no way to get out of a coffin once they seal it.

  • I hope I get an autopsy before getting buried now.

  • Anjilyn McBride

    First of all no one get’s burried alive on accident in this modern era of medicine, it just doesn’t happen. So if you find yourself buried alive it was on purpose, apparently you have really pissed someone off and what’s more this is an intensly personal form of torture, if you were just in the way they would have just killed you and then disposed of the body, so this was personal. My point is, dont’ listen to him about yelling once you get your head up out of the dirt because there is a chance one of your abductees or your abductor is still in the area and the last thing you want to do is alert them to the fact that you got out. Secondly since you were buried alive on purpose and it was personal there is no way they just kept you stashed away somewhere while they went coffin shopping, that would raise significant red flags to anyone who has noticed you missing, they are going to want to do this quickly is my point, so they are going to stick you in a pine box that they have slapped together and chances are they have tied your hands as well. The best way to get out of hand restraints even plastic zip ties is your teeth, they are actually pretty sharp and very dense, I mean look at the damage they do to food, and have you ever seen anyone who has been bitten, your teeth are your best option to getting out of hand restraints.

    • Daven Hiskey

      @Anjilyn McBride: People do get buried alive, it’s just something that’s much more rare than it used to be. So long as you’re embalmed, there’s at least no chance of it. But every couple months you read about someone pronounced dead that they then start prepping for burial or in one recent case, they started cutting the guy open to harvest his organs at the hospital (after a car accident where he was pronounced dead at the scene and again by a doctor in the hospital) and they discovered he was still alive, so stitched him back up and a week or so later, they managed to revive him and he’s fine now. These types of cases would seem to make it probable that it does happen, just not at all even close to common and impossible when embalmed.

  • Anjilyn McBride

    Oh yea and for those who said, I hope I get an autopsy before getting burried alive, or that’s why I pefer to be creamated, uh hello?! Because it would be so much better to be autopsied alive? or creamated, burned alive? not the smartest comments people.

  • Hello everyone, Dont you know that before they put you in the coffin they take all your blood out and put something else to preserve it. Your definally dead. You cant live without Blood! lol

  • Question, if you actually get the lid of the coffin wouldnt all the mud or soil pile all over you so basically your buried again? Also i thought they screwed the lid on with nails? How do you get out of that ?

  • I read once a man was pronounce dead and was buried the same evening, and before they leave the cemetery. the family heard someone screaming from the grave. They don’t want to open because they said the doctor already pronounce him dead and they thought he was touche-rd by the angel of death. They wait till the scream subside and left. The family are damn stupid… i still feel bad for the man.

    I am so scared being buried alive. I am going to make my own grave where there’s access for me to open if i am still alive. My grandfather make his own grave before he died, i want to make mine too…

  • Do you guys not realize there is probably more than 8000lbs of dirt above your head? Lmao you can’t just stand up with 4 tons of dirt pressing down on your body…

  • Wouldn’t they catch the mistake of you being still alive at the funeral home…when they CUT YOU OPEN!! If you end up buried alive, then you had a very shoddy funeral service.

  • Lol, call a relative? HAHAHAHAH, i’d call 911 they’d be there a lot faster!

  • You used the word “extradite” incorrectly, twice. Extradition is the act of returning a criminal to the place of his crime (more or less). The word you were looking for is “extricate” which means to to free or release from entanglement (more or less).

  • Anyone interested in this topic should watched the movie Buried its about an U.S contractor working in Iraq and gets buried alive for a ransom.

  • I pretty much got paranoid from going to my aunts funeral. Her casket was beyond bulky and I kept thinking what if she’s alive… Then I remembered the movie Kill Bill when she punches her way out. It works I guess if the casket is super basic and pretty much just a wooden box.

  • Interesting.
    Just disappointed by the retarded God part. Well, whatever.

    • Daven Hiskey

      @Ploo: Just trying to inject a little humor in there. 🙂

      • aw, i thought you were serious. really, it is as good a piece of advice as any other in the article. miracles are known to happen sometimes. people should have All options presented to them… coz you never know…

  • You could have mentioned, if someone was truly unable to get themselves out, It would be better to induce hyperventilation and have yourself pass out as opposed to dieing slowly well you convulse and panic.

  • This article is for the people who were meant to be buried alive by very cruel people I’m pretty sure. And it would probably be helpful considering that most average psychopaths don’t have access to these super metal coffins or these super secure coffins none the less a plexiglass vault to put around the coffin before burial. So yeah, this would be pretty helpful in most any case where you are actually buried alive.

  • Have you field tested this methodology? “Feel free” to use my mother as a test subject.

    • Im just kiddin like jason…

      • Your Mother needs to be told you said that and quickly! Good god. I’ll bet you are one of those punks who thinks their mother owes them everything, instead of being grateful she didn’t run you down the drain. Awful! Just an awful thing to say. And in this day and age, frightening to this other mother!

  • I liked the part about “If you are going to pray avoid offering God something for getting you out.”

    I think it might depend on what you offer. I was on a Ferris Wheel once that had broken down. My seat device was at the very top of the wheel when it broke down. In an attempt to get it to going again they would run it backwards and then slam it to a stop. That caused it’s seats to careen back and forth, some of them almost going upside down and spilling the people out.

    About the third time this happened I started praying.

    I said “Lord, I have not been to church for many years but if you get me out of this I’ll never get back on another Ferris Wheel again!”

    I got off OK. A few years later my wife tried to get me to go back on one. It was a fairly new one. I still refused. ” I said NO I promised God I would not do that and I am sticking to that promise!”

    As far as being buried alive in this day and time it’s nearly impossible. I think most states have laws that require that a body be embalmed before it’s buried.
    It could happen only if you were sent to a crooked funeral home. A place that charges for embalming but does not do it.

  • I have tried it once and I died.

  • bomb cheemp cheemp

    Thank you so much for posting this!!!!
    I have been Recieving daily threats of being buried alive, for the last 36 years.
    I finally feel prepared, in the event that it actually happens.

    • What? 🙁 please explain- that is so messed up and scary if someone is actually doing that to you. Is it like a jilted ex boyfriend or something? Or were you joking lols

  • Thank you for posting! I actually had to get up and walk around – to remove myself from the mental imagery it evoked. I have suddenly and recently developed severe claustrophobia, focused on being buried alive (I think it’s called thatephobia? sp?). I’m meeting a psychologst next week to see if we cannot get rid of it. Never had it before, but wow – it’s powerful, horrible intrusive thoughts of actually BEING THERE, restricted, helpless. Your article made it FEEL less helpless although intellectually, I am fairly certain it wouldn’t work in real life.

    But hyperventilation and singing would cause loss of consciouness in under 4 minutes (which could feel like four hours if you let it) … and then, you die. Of course, I can see me going ape and instantly having heart attack number 3 and that’d be that! I think I’d rather it be that, too.

  • I’m sorry but did anybody else get a good laugh out of this?

  • Quoting this very weird article: “One simple meditation anyone can master is to simply repeat some word over and over again in your head slowly; might I suggest ‘Vacca Foeda.'”
    Yes, you may suggest it, if you want people to know that you are an idiot. Those words mean, “Ugly Cow.” A person who has been buried alive should instead meditate/pray by expressing sorrow for all his/her sins and saying interiorly, again and again, “My Jesus, mercy!”


    But what i did different was i took of my shoes because they where heavy and where sinking into the dirt while my feet where flat and stood firmer.

    • Umm, please explain further? Are you serious? :O if you’re not joking, please explain further. This is my worst nightmare, can’t believe anyone would ever have this happen!

  • To me, being buried alive is the worst death ever

  • If I ever catch myself trying to bury a midget. It will take place in a sandbox. So he to can try out your methods.

  • I am a writer needing this info and I appreciate it. BUT what about the concrete box into which coffins by law have to be buried?

    • Daven Hiskey

      @Mike: That’s becoming more and more common in many places. In that case, you’re screwed. But, as stated, at least this gives you something to do rather than just freak out the whole time. 🙂

  • When you’re buried in today’s world they make CERTAIN you’re dead. They also do alot of things to corpse such as-
    Draining the body of ALL FLUIDS
    Drying everything out (Dont ask me how)
    They sew your lips and eyes closed
    They place metal rods in you to keep a solid pose
    And Lastly they fill your body with a jelly substance so it preserves the body longer.

    • Why do they do all that? And is it to take away any chances of you waking up or to just check that you really are dead? It sounded quite evil-the way you’ve explained it. o.O And do they have to do that by law? And what’s embalmed? Do they have to embalm in the UK? Or have to do all of what you just said in the UK? And what’s autopsy? And what’s a casket? And can you still get graves with bells installed throught the ground to notify the people on grave duty that you’re still alive? If you can then how common is it?

  • when I die or just presumed dead I want the morgue to slash my throat to make sure I’m dead. I don’t want to be buried alive.

  • Taphephobia…even the thought sends chills up my spine. this article, even though fiction brought a sense of solice…I have nightmares of it….and in my waking hours sudden flashes of imagry; being confined in that tiny little box sends me into panic attacks. I have been seeing a therapist, she assures me that no one would ever do this to me but I cant help it… I just feel like i wear the horror of it on my face and that someone might just conspire against me and curse my fleeting final moments with the torment of being Buried Alive. I make sure i am kind and humble to others because i fear that some one could and would do this to me. The paranoia is severe and honestly, I feel this has happen to me in a past life. I really hope that one day i am free from the intrusive thoughts and night terrors before I am inevitably put there for eternity….Thank you for the article and Im sorry for the personal rant.


    Why not just drain the blood or take out their vital organs to ensure that they don’t wake up..

  • I’m super claustrophobic so The thought of this freaks me the hell out and don’t wanna think about it but I guess it’s better to read some survival tips than not.

    But something occurred to me as I was reading this, the author said use the cell phone if your family happen to bury you with it. I realised you can ensure (ensure IF your loved ones follow instructions) you’re buried with these tools:

    if you put it in your Will or some kind of letter you pre warn a family member to read prior to the funeral (Or one of those mobile apps that send a customised message to a loved one if you dont respond to period notifications- ie you’ve died.)

    Things to possibly include could be: a cell phone, spare battery(s) or a portable cordless phone charger (many have stored energy that depletes after you plug the phone in), an axe to break the coffin, an oxygen tank, a collapsible ladder, etc. and possible request that they spring for a bigger coffin so you’d have the room to move/escape more easily.

    Pretty morbid to think about but could literally save your life in case this horror situation happens. And you’re not just taking a chance your family will be superstitious and bury you with that cell phone etc.

  • Instructions unclear, got foot stuck in sewer

  • The Fear of being buried alive, was so huge, That People created ”Safety Coffins” That had a Bell hanging out of the side of the coffin, that The Person inside could ring, to tell their Comrades they were still alive. There was always a note near the ring, saying: ”Youre Alive! DONT PANIC! Ring The Bell!”
    It was mostly used by Wehrmacht soldiers, and the coffin was left for 2 hours before burial. 1.239 Wehrmacht Soldiers were rescued from their Coffins.

  • People keep writing about how you would never be accidentally buried alive because of factors a, b, and c… no shit sirs and ma’ams. This kind of knowledge is for when you piss off the wrong person and wind up 6 feet under.

    • Spongebob Squarepants

      Then why would you call for help if you managed to get above ground? So the murderers can come back to shove you back under?

  • the boy with a huge penis

    I would say the only way your alive and buried at the same time would be if someone purposly buried you, and i doubt that you could get up through all that dirt above you it would probably flood in as soon as there was a hole above your head and if you were buried alive the best thing to do would be investigate the coffin and if possible turn over (i doubt you could) then push hard and stand up like your evil and shout “self ressurect bitch!!!” Then jump out and turn evil then slowly go home and kill everyone in your way.This is just a joke and should not be taken seriously all tho it might work

  • These comments gave me cancer. Yes, they make sure you’re dead and drain all your blood and shit, bUT have any of you ever heard of people burying other people alive on PURPOSE?! No? You’re all stupid

    • I think you’ve watched too many episodes of Days of our Lives.

    • That’s not what this article suggests as the writer has mentioned several times the types of coffins your family might string for according to their wealth of if they liked you.

  • Seriously, get a life and stop worrying about shlt that wont happen to you. The writer of this obviously has more time on their hands than you could shake a shltty stick at.

  • Thanks god I am a Hindu…..And 99 percent of Hindus cremate their dead….No chance to get buried alive….Proud and feeling safe to be a Hindu…

  • Man…You Hindu…don’t even know that being burnt alive is more terrible than being buried alive….

  • I hope pshyco killers that bury people alive for fun don’t find this… Wouldn’t that sucks to dig yourself out of your would be grave just to find your murderer sipping lemonade in a lawn chair waiting to put you back in….

  • A fun read for those not able to extract fact from fiction. So lets do it, in a “lite” version without all the calculations. Firstly, the article is fiction. It would be impossible for a person to extract themselves from a coffin buried under six feet of normal soil. Why?

    I am writing this under the assumption that your living body was simply dropped into a cheap pine coffin and buried six feet deep–no autopsy and no attempt to preserve the body were performed.

    1) If you are displaying the signs of death, but are actually in a deep coma you will not have the presence of mind nor physical strength to do much after waking. hence, death will occur in about an hour, or if you panic, as little as 20 minutes.

    2) The amount of oxygen available in the usual coffin is enough to continue breathing for 3 to 6 hours–unless you are a practicing monk. Then you may go to 15 hours.

    3) There is little room in a coffin, not nearly enough to allow you the force needed to kick through it without first using up your oxygen.

    4) If you actually did manage to break through the coffin (unlikely) and had enough oxygen to begin digging, you would soon find yourself trapped in the dirt that falls in to replace the dirt you kicked in the coffin.

    5) Soon you would again be trapped, but this time in the dirt. It would continue to fall even if you did nothing. Dirt is naturally self compacting. Soon you would not be able to inhale as the pressure surrounding your chest would prevent movement.

    There are additional salient point here that would place an additional burden on any attempt to extract your self from six feet under dirt, but the above makes escape so highly unlikely the remaining points do not need to be delineated.

    If the author is so convinced that his article is the real deal, I challenge him to attempt it. Look here for a Myth busters challenge. They affirm that breaking through and digging your way up is impossible.

  • Mythbusters attempted something like this recently, and even with a breathing mask, it was impossible to 1 – break out of a coffin with hundreds of pounds of dirt on top of you, and 2 – even if you somehow managed to break out of the coffin, the weight of the dirt above you would almost certainly crush you.

    They even tried it by having the person start out in a squatting position to eliminate the problems with maneuvering your body into a vertical position to push up through the dirt. In short, its all but impossible at 5-6 feet. At 2 feet, it’s plausible, but only if you could break out of the coffin before your oxygen ran out (very unlikely).

  • Well, if you get buried alive than you should stay calm and just ask god to forgive you of your sins and that you belive he died for you. Just ask god to save you from sin. (Just in case you dont get out so that you have a chance to be with jesus. ( but their is a chance you wont get buried alive, unless is on purpose.)
    Hope that this helped,
    Destiny 🙂

  • If you let out gas or fart and breathe it in you can buy yourself about 2 mins of time

  • guys enough with the embalming stuff we know already. the reason i’m reading this isn’t a fear of being buried by my family after they assume i’m dead, i know that wont happen because 1) i’m donating my organs 2) i better get a damn autopsy first 3) i’m getting cremated. i’m sacred of being kidnapped by a psycho and buried alive by him!

  • Actually there’s only about 3 feet of dirt over the casket…they dig a 6 foot hole..after the coffin is placed and the top cover…anyhow!

  • Last night I watched the movie Buried. I think I’m scarred for life after watching it. Im so claustrophobic that even as I watched it I found my breathing getting quicker & stomach pains. I can only imagine the sheer horror of actually being in that situation. I woke up today wondering: what COULD you do to help save your life in this situation & that question led me here. The only truthful answer I’ve found is: Nothing. Because if you are buried alive you are 99.99% sure to have been abducted. Also its pretty guaranteed that no one has a clue where you could be to even begin searching for you. Whoever put you there wanted you dead so youre probably remotely buried, with no civilization for miles. With such a lack of oxygen every little movement you make just brings you closer to death, so trying to fight your way out is pretty pointless. And if by some miracle you do manage to get out of the casket you’ll just have a crushing suffocation by the dirt around you anyway. No matter how you look at it its just a horrible way to go.

  • I trained myself to eat dirt for this very reason!

  • If you are buried, you have been embalmed. There is no coming back from that.

  • Y’all talking about being trapped because your relatives thinking you’re dead, i just came here because i saw thag movie and i said to myself what if this happens to me? What if someone intentionally bury me alive? Oh wellll

  • folks, come on, this article was surely meant simply for entertainment or amusement. but i love that the writer added the praying chapter. i bet any atheist would try it if they woke up in a coffin. and i echo the common sentiment – to be embalmed then cremated – no buried alive scenario there!
    lots of good tips, though, to keep in mind, just in case.

  • This is fun, and I’m sure was only ever meant for fun, because honestly, none of this would really work. Even a cheap coffin would be hard to break considering how little space you have, and if you did break it, the dirt pouring in would make it impossible for you to get out. The average human cannot stab themselves in the neck, let alone rip their own veins open with their teeth. I know most of us think in a critical situation, anything’s possible, but nah. You’ll be asphyxiating, that’s kinda a given. But eh, I’d still try to get out. Dying one way or another, might as well go out fighting.

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