The Strange Story Of Essie Dunbar, The Woman Who Was Allegedly Buried Alive In 1915

In 1915, the medical tools available for assessing vital signs were substantially more limited than what exists today.

A physician examining a patient for signs of life would have been relying primarily on direct observation of breathing, palpation of the pulse, and auscultation of the heart with a stethoscope.

In a deeply unconscious, post-ictal patient with slow, shallow breathing and a weak, slow pulse, the distinction between profound unconsciousness and death could have been genuinely difficult to establish with the tools and methods available in rural South Carolina in 1915.

The history of medicine includes documented cases of patients being incorrectly declared dead under conditions not entirely dissimilar to those described in the Dunbar account.