Natural Burial

[swandiverpatt]

Funny coincidence -- I was channel surfing last night and found a segment about green burials on a show on Fit TV! The presenter was spouting statistics about how many tons of concrete are put in the ground each year, gallons of embalming fluids, etc.

 

[chamonix]

About ten years ago a yopung mom in town died, ( accidental overdose) She was transported and some sort of an autopsy was done. But she was NOT embalmed. I could never figure out how they got around this? Since she was at the ME's for over a week before release.

Viewing and Burial was a the Old Indian meeting house and burial grounds. So That would be tribal owned lands. I am assumming there must be some religous exceptions in some states?

Twinmom, i don't know what state you are in, but Minnesots is one of the few states that requires embalming after a certain time passes. Most states don't require it, and most states allow refrigeration/ice instead. I don't know for sure, but i also think that the autopsy process functions somewhat like embalming and may have helped her body slow the decomposition process (for example, I think they drain the blood and fluids from the body during autopsy). Religious exemptions are definitely another possibility. Viewing after a lot of time passed would be at the discretion of the family, I would think.

 

[LukenDC]

According to a show that was on the History Channel some time ago, in the 1800s there was a popular fear that people could mistakenly be pronounced dead and buried alive. Draining the blood from the body was one measure to ensure that the deceased was in fact deceased. Another safeguard against premature burial was the construction of coffins with a pull string leading to a bell above ground. A ringing bell signaled that a live being was buried.

 

[suzannen]

According to a show that was on the History Channel some time ago, in the 1800s there was a popular fear that people could mistakenly be pronounced dead and buried alive. Draining the blood from the body was one measure to ensure that the deceased was in fact deceased. Another safeguard against premature burial was the construction of coffins with a pull string leading to a bell above ground. A ringing bell signaled that a live being was buried.

My DD was given this by her history teacher when they were learning about the 1500s:
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

 

[tvguy]

Around here that would not be legal. Any body not buried within 24 hours has to be embalmed.

Wow, that's interesting. A lot of people have religious beliefs that forbid embalming, wonder how they get around that?
Unless you are doing an open casket a long time after death, there is absolutely no reason to do embalming.