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Woman Buried Alive For 11 Days Tried To Fight Her Way Out Of Her Coffin

Woman Buried Alive For 11 Days Tried To Fight Her Way Out Of Her Coffin

A 37-year-old woman was accidentally buried alive in Brazil. She spent 11 days in her coffin trying to fight her way out, but failed.

Mischa Pearlmen

Mischa Pearlmen

Ask people what their worst fear is, and you can bet that a number of people will say it's being buried alive. It's no surprise that it's cropped up in popular culture a bit over the years. Take that Ryan Reynolds movie, Buried, for example.

But that's fiction, unlike the story of 37-year-old Rosangela Almeida dos Santos, who, it's claimed, was buried alive by mistake and lay conscious inside her coffin - which was inside a stone tomb - for 11 days. The video below shows the panic as scores of people tried to rescue her.

Suspicions had been aroused when people living close to the cemetery heard shouts and screams coming from inside the tomb, but by the time family members smashed open the tomb after locals reported what they'd heard, Santos had already died.

"She had tried to open the lid," her mother, 66-year-old Germana de Almeida, said, explaining that when the coffin was finally opened there were injuries on her body that hadn't been there when she was buried. "Even the nails that had been hammered in were loose. Her hands were injured, like she had been trying to get out."

The family claim that the nails around the sides of the coffin had been pushed up, and that there were scratches and blood on the inside of it.

Globo G1

Before her supposed death, Santos - who had apparently been suffering fainting spells since she was seven and took anti-convulsant medicines - had been rushed by her family to the Hospital do Oeste in Barreiras, in Brazil's northeastern state of Bahia, with fatigue.

She spent a week there, where she suffered two cardiac arrests, before - according to her death certificate - dying from 'septic shock'.

But her body had reportedly turned around and was still warm when the coffin was opened. In addition to the new injuries on her hands and forehead - presumably from trying to fight her way out - cotton wool which had been in her ears and nostrils had been removed.

Globo G1

"We don't want to accuse any doctor, we don't want to cause any problems," said Santos' sister, Isamara Almeida. "But we witnessed that situation, there's just no way a person can be buried for 11 days and still be warm."

The incident is now being investigated by police. Police chief Arnaldo Monte, who is leading the investigation, said: "We have today started to take statements from family members and other people.

"If need be we will exhume Ms Santos' body again so we can get to the bottom of what really happened."

Featured Image Credit: Globo G1

Topics: World News, Brazil