The prospect of being buried alive has long terrified people. So much so that provisions have been placed in wills requiring waiting periods, entombment in unlocked crypts, etc.
Some inventor actually applied for a patent for what was called a “device for indicating life in buried persons.”
The buried person simply needed to rotate a lever with his hands, which would trigger an above-ground signal.
Signalling the living about such an unfortunate mistake would be easier today thanks to the advent of cell phone technology. People who are worried could simply ask that they be buried with their mobile devices, which could be left on until the battery died. (Unlikely that a person would be buried alive and unconscious that long, but I guess there is a slight risk.)
Two excellent practical ways to avoid being buried alive are embalming and cremation. It is impossible for anyone to survive embalming, because the blood is drained and replaced with a formaldehyde-based preservative.
And of course no one survives cremation, but cremation alive would not be fun. (Rare, but it could happen.)
I think I’ll go the embalming route. After that, I don’t think I’d need a cell phone.
Comments
6 responses to “I think I’d like to be embalmed (preferably after I’m dead)”
I don’t think the average cell phone will work very well in a coffin under five or six feet of soil.
Especially if one has one of the metal-lined coffins.
Also, it’s hard to use a phone when you can’t bring your arms up to see the screen, as in a coffin…
Not a lot of air in that thing. Even with slowed respiration.
And what happens if the grave diggers break the antenna while filling the grave in?
.
I think I’ll go with cremation – that guy is still alive. I suspect draining one’s blood would tend to exacerbate a coma, whereas sudden burning sensations might well do the opposite.
Soylent Green solves this problem.
Embalming is certainly one way to be sure that the putative deceased has actually passed on, joined the choir invisible and generally is no longer metabolizing, respiring or doing much else. .45 through the head is quicker, more economical, and even more surely dispositive.
Although I suspect the real concern among these people is not to insure death, but to avoid any possibility of embalming, cremating, burying or otherwise terminating someone still alive. How often does this happen, anyway? Every few years maybe you hear about someone waking up in the morgue. Pretty rare when you consider how many millions die each year. Something should be determinative of real death, no chance of coming back, you’re really dead, Jim, time to decompose.
No brain waves seems convincing for determining end of life.
I’d rather be mummified than embalmed. And a pyramid of my own.