Before days of modern medicine, many feared being buried alive. As a result, safety coffins were invented in case the living were mispronounced dead. A string attached to a bell allowed the victim to alert those above
In 17th century England, it is documented that a woman by the name of Alice Blunden was buried alive. As the story goes, she was so knocked out after having imbibed a large quantity of poppy tea that a doctor holding a mirror to her nose and mouth pronounced her dead. (Tea made from dried, unwashed seed pods would have contained morphine and codeine, which are sedatives.)
