A woman who was laid to rest was believed to be still alive, despite being placed in a coffin, having it nailed shut and being placed in a stone tomb.
It goes without saying, being buried alive must be a harrowing experience, so one can’t even comprehend what 37-year-old Rosangela Almeida dos Santos was going through, when her family and friends buried her body.
Her coffin had to be exhumed after screams were heard coming out from the grave she was placed in.
When they unearthed her coffin they found Santos’ lifeless body had blood and injuries to her wrist which were indications she was trying to get out.
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Her wooden casket was nailed tightly shut and placed inside the tomb so when her family dug it out on Friday, they found her body was still warm with fresh injuries, reports the Mirror.
An unidentified person recorded the commotion as people at the Senhora Santana cemetery in Riachao das Neves, northeast Brazil, tried desperately to remove the lid of her casket
Some people in the video can be heard asking to call the hospital as they commented on how warm her body was.
Santos was buried the day after she was officially pronounced dead in hospital on January 28 – this means she was buried alive for at least 11 days.
However, people living near the cemetery could hear screaming and banging coming from her tomb, so they alerted her family on February 9.
Her body was said to be still warm and in a different position from what it was originally in when they placed her in the coffin.
Furthermore, cotton wool which had been placed into her nostrils and ear holes had come out and there were clear signs of injuries to her hands and forehead which suggests she was trying to fight her way out.
There were also scratch and blood marks inside the coffin and the lid was found to have been pushed upwards.
Ms Santos was admitted to the Hospital do Oeste in Barreiras for a week, she was rushed there by her family after she came down with severe fatigue.
According to her death certificate, she died from ‘septic shock’ after suffering two cardiac arrests.
Santos, who was married but had no children, took anticonvulsant medicines as a way to combat spells of fainting, which she’d suffered from since she was seven-years-old.
One of the residents who lived near the cemetery where she was buried, Natalina Silva, spoke to Brazilian news network G1, claiming she’s heard muffled screams during the night coming from her grave:
I thought the kids who play around the cemetery were playing a joke on me. Then I heard her groan twice and after those two groans she stopped.
Another local who lived near the graveyard, Ana Francisco Dias, told Brazil’s Globo TV station:
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. She wasn’t cold.
Santos’ family are already looking for answers as to what happened – they’re convinced the doctor’s at the hospital made a severe error in declaring her death and have taken the matter to the police.
Her sister, Isamara Almeida, said:
We don’t want to accuse any doctor, we don’t want to cause any problems, but we witnessed that situation, there’s just no way a person can be buried for 11 days and still be warm.
Lead investigator, Police chief Arnaldo Monte, released a statement saying:
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.
A spokesperson for the Hospital de Oeste, where Santos was declared dead, released their own statement promising to ‘provide all necessary information requested’ to help with the investigation.
