Woman ‘Buried Alive’ Spent 11 Days Trying to Fight Her Way Out of Coffin
A woman who was accidentally buried alive is reported to have remained conscious inside her coffin for eleven days while attempting to fight her way out.
Rosangela Almeida dos Santos, 37, screamed as she struggled to free herself. During this time, she suffered wrist injuries. When her body was exhumed at a cemetery in Riachao das Neves, northeast Brazil, blood was discovered inside the coffin.
Rosangela was found dead after her family smashed up the stone tomb. A video emerged showing the commotion in the Senhora Santana cemetery as locals first removed the heavy coffin and lid.
In the video, some people request an ambulance while others touch the woman’s feet and comment on how warm she is. However, she was declared dead in the hospital and buried the next day.
After hearing screams and bangs coming from inside the tomb, people living near the cemetery alerted her family 11 days after Rosangela was laid to rest.
Her body was still warm and turned in a different position than when she was placed in the coffin.
The woman appeared to have fought her way out of the structure, as evidenced by injuries on her hands and forehead. Cotton wool from the woman’s ears and nostrils had also come out of her body.
They claim that the nails around the sides of the coffin lid had been pushed upwards, and that there were scratches and blood on the inside.
Rosangela had been hospitalized for a week at the Hospital do Oeste in Barreiras, in Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia, after being rushed there by her family with severe fatigue.
According to her death certificate, she died of “septic shock” after two cardiac arrests. The woman, who was married but had no children, had fainting spells since she was seven years old and was on anticonvulsant medication.
Rosangela’s family said their final goodbyes at a wake held the day before she was buried in a concrete tomb at the municipal cemetery in her hometown of Riachao das Neves the next day in January 2018.
Housewife Natalina Silva told Brazil’s G1 website at the time that many people had heard muffled screams during the night.
“When I got there right in front of the tomb, I heard banging from inside,” she explained. I thought the kids who played in the cemetery were making fun of me. Then I heard her groan twice, and she stopped after those two groans.”
Ms Santos’ mother, Germana de Almeida, 66, claimed that when the coffin was removed and opened, they discovered that her body had been injured – injuries she claimed did not exist when she was buried.
“She had tried to open the lid, even the nails that had been hammered in were loose,” she explained. Her hands were swollen, as if she had been trying to escape.”
“There were more than 500 people who came here and packed the cemetery, everybody went to see, lots of people touched her foot and everybody saw that she was still warm,” Ana Francisco Dias, who lives near the cemetery, told Brazil’s Globo TV station. She wasn’t cold.”
