We've heard (and reported) stories of people being buried alive, and even more so, the fear of being buried alive. We can assume that most of the cases in which a person was buried while not yet dead were never discovered. Some cases were discovered too late, and the burial caused their real death. Then there is the story of Essie Dunbar, who was pronounced dead after a seizure in 1915. Dunbar's funeral was delayed because her sister had to travel quite far, and even then she was too late to witness the burial when she finally arrived. The woman convinced the funeral party to exhume the coffin so she could see her sister one last time. Yes, Dunbar was found to be alive, but the discovery caused chaos instead of joy, as some of the funeral party thought she was now a ghost or zombie of some sort.
There is little documentation of Essie Dunbar's first burial, but it appears to have been an accepted account at the time in North Carolina. It's not the only story of premature burial, and there are others with both happy and gruesome endings in an article at History Defined. -via Nag on the Lake
(Image source: National Archives)