Coffins were once built with holes in them, attached to six feet of copper tubing and a bell. The tubing would allow anyone who had been buried alive to breath beneath the surface, and the bell would provide them with a way to alert somebody about their situation, should they wake up.
Legend has it that in one small town, Harold, the local gravedigger, heard the ringing of a bell late one night and ventured out into the cemetery to see if it was children pretending to be spirits. Sometimes, it was the wind. Tonight, it was neither.
A voice from below begged and pleaded to unburied.
"Are you Sarah O' Bannon?" Harold asked of the voice.
"Yes!" it replied.
"You were born on September 17th, 1827?"
"Yes!"
"The gravestone here says you died on February 20th, 1857."
"No, I'm alive, it was a mistake! Dig me up! Set me free!"
"Sorry about this, ma'am," said Harold, stepping on the bell to silence it and plugging the copper tube with dirt, "but this is August. Whatever you are down there, you sure as hell ain't alive no more and you ain't comin' up."
