Have there been any verified cases of premature burial?
There are quite a few books out on the subject, and yes, several of them claim documented cases of premature burial.
They all occured in the 1800s. Back then, doctors could easily misdiagnose death since heartbeat and respiration could be too faint for the crude instruments of the day to detect. By no means was the actual number of cases large enough to justify the terrible paranoia that some people had that they might be buried alive. Some came up with greusome “tests” their body should undergo before burial. (Some folks even requested that their corpse be beheaded.) France even had places called “waiting mortuaries” in which the corpse was placed on a bed in a ward until decomposition proved that the victim was well and truly dead.
Oddly enough, I just read about this last night on Snopes.com. There’s a link to a long article with anecdotes and explainations.
Yes it happened. It became a custom to put bells outside the grave in case the dead person wasn’t dead…they coud ring the bell for help.