Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1900 — HER EYELIDS SAVED HER. [ARTICLE]

HER EYELIDS SAVED HER.

A Supposed Dead Woman’s Kscape from Burial Alive. Mrs. Christina Ilirth of East St. Louis narrowly escaped burial alive. She had been ill three months find Monday mooi ing of last week apparently expired, at the county hospital. The doctor came and felt her pulse and applied other tests and pronounced her dead. The county undertaker was called, the body was taken to the dead room and laid out on a cooling board. Cloths saturated with bleaching fluid were placed over the face and the body. The shrdtid and clothing in which she was to be buried were prepared. While busy with his preparations toward embalming, the undertaker was startled by a noise proceeding from the direction of the corpse. He glanced hastily, but there was no motion in the white-sheeted figure. When he came to remove the sheet from tne face, however, he noticed that one of the weights had fallen off an eyelid. In replacing it>he thought that he detected a slight quiver in the eyelids, but, attributing it to his imagination, went about his preparations. Again the noise and the fallen weight. This time the quiver in the eye was more pronounced. There was no heart motion or breathing that he could detect, and he was about to inject the fluid when again he noticed the quiver, and then, to be thoroughly satisfied, he applied the most powerful test of life known to undertakers. There was an unmistakable though faint'indication of life in response. Assistance was summoned, the partially embalmed woman removed to a bed and restoratives were applied by the doctors. She was able, after several hours, to speak in a whisper and move her muscles, but the weakness paused by her illness and the terrible ordeal through which she had passed told heavily upon her. and she could make no statement as to her experiences while in a trance.