My great, great grandmother, ill for quite some time, finally passed away after lying in a coma for several days. My great-great-grandfather was devastated beyond belief, as she was his one true love and they had been married for over 50 years. They were married so long it seemed as if they knew each other's innermost thoughts.
After the doctor pronounced her dead, my great-great-grandfather insisted that she was still alive. They had to pry him away from his wife's body so that they could ready her for burial.
Back in those days, they had backyard burial plots and did not drain the body of its fluids. They simply prepared a proper coffin and buried the body (in its coffin) in its permanent resting place. Throughout this process, my great-great-grandfather protested so fiercely that he had to be sedated and put to bed. Finally, his wife was buried.
That night he woke to a horrific vision of his wife hysterically trying to scratch her way out of the coffin. He phoned the doctor immediately and begged to have his wife's body exhumed. The doctor refused, but my great-great-grandfather had this nightmare every night for a week, each time frantically begging to have his wife removed from the grave.
Finally, the doctor gave in and, together with local authorities, exhumed the body. The coffin was pried open and to everyone's horror and amazement, my great-great-grandmother's nails were bent back and there were bloody scratch-marks on the inside of the coffin.
