running dogg wrote:

In an age in which we know that the Pope died at EXACTLY 9:37 pm Italy
time, the silver hammer is not exactly needed anymore. Presumably 1000
years ago, it was. In the days before we could tell with certainty that
a person was dead, there was a very real risk of being buried alive.
It's happened several times that are recorded. I've read that it even
happened recently (within the last ten years, maybe five) in Saudi
Arabia. The poor guy was buried alive and a shepherd heard him screaming
from inside his coffin and dug him out. He returned home in his burial
shroud and his mother and sister fainted from fright.

Back when they often carried the body of the deceased to the grave in an
open coffin, a lady presumably passed away, but was actually in one of
these comas. On the way to the grave site she was pricked by a thorn
bush and she woke up. Some years later she actually did die. On the way
to the grave site the husband said, "please be careful of the thorn bush".