Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-12-26
CURED WHILE ALIVE.
Horrible Case of Suspended Animation
Being Taken for Death.

being I0keM Tor Death.
DENVER. Col. Dec. 19.-A horrible
story OF man being buried alive while
supposed to be dead has come to light
here. On Sunday, Nov. 10, Louis Bren-
ner, IS years of age, an employee of the
South Park Railway shops, was sup
posed to have died from ovcrindulgence
in malt stimnlants. His funeral was set
for Dec. 2. under the auspices of one of
the local tribes of Red Men.
There was nothing unusual about the
Services until the cof1incd body was
placed in the hcarse. Then for some
unexplained reason, the horses which
had been used for this purpose for years
refused to go, and became so unruly that
they had to be changed for another
team. When the cortcge was ready to
move the horse of Henry Speck, one of
the mourners, positively refused to
move and he was obliged to procure
another animal to add to the list of UNI
common and uncanny events. A run
away team crossed the funeral process
sion on the way to the Riverside ceme-
terry and collidcd with a buggy contain
ing two of the friends of the deceased.
The men escaped injury, but the buggy
was badly damaged. Arriving at the
cemetery, the coffin was dropped from
the hearse by laundering attendants, to
the disgust of the mourners.
Another and more sickening accident
awaited them. AS the coffin was being
lowered into the grave one of the ropes
broke, and for a moment the people were
Mortified by seeing the coffin standing on
end in the grave. According to the
burial services of the Red Men it is pro-
vided for the liberation of dove from q
small box placed on the coffin just as the
first handful of dirt is thrown into the
grave. This was finally done after the
coffin had been properly placed in the
grave. With feeling akin to super
stitious terror, some of the mourners saw
the dove flutter from its cage and alight
at the very edge of the grave. 1t would
not take wings until frightened away by
the men who piled the dirt over the
narrow home of the supposed deceased.
There were unusually thoughtful faces
in the procession that wendell its way
slowly from the city of the dead. The
more superstitious began to ponder over
the matter, and finally decided to
disinter the remains. This work was
S1OAAS OAS WYNN GiSo EuA.
day, and to their unspeakable
horror they discovered, as soon as the
lid of the coffin box was raised, that the
coffin itself was split and the glass in the
cover was broken, as if the dead had
come to life, and in the unutterable
agony of realization of his position had
struggled with the mad desperation of
hopelessness and helplessness to free
himself from the very grasp of death
whose horrors can be but feebly mag
ined by the living.
The coffin lid was raised. and the full
horror burst upon them. The body was
lying on its face, the Innings of the coffin
had been torn to shreds, the hair was
pulled out of the head, the arms were
bent and the hands so tightly clinched
that the finger nails had been sunk into
the flesh. Horror-stricken at the discov-
cry they had made, the friends first made
sure that life was indeed extinct, and
then replaced the lid of the coffin, retilled
the grave and left the place.