How to Escape Being Buried Alive (According to TikTok)

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Find out if escape is even possible, plus learn about safety coffins

Co-authored by Elaine Heredia, BA

Last Updated: January 25, 2026 Fact Checked

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Escaping a Coffin

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Is escape possible?

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About Safety Coffins

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Is being buried alive your worst nightmare? If so, we have good news: it's next to impossible that you'll still be alive when you're buried in a coffin 6 feet under the ground. But if this is a real concern for you, TikTok has a solution: breaking and tunneling your way out. But how does this hypothetical escape plan work, and is it technically possible? Keep reading to learn how to escape a coffin buried underground, and find out if it's possible. Plus, discover how humanity's concerns with premature burial led to the invention of the safety coffin, and why it's not used today.

How do you escape a coffin underground?

It's impossible to escape a coffin buried 6 ft (180 cm) underground. Hypothetically, though, if you were buried in a pine box, you could try to punch the lid to break it. If you were able to push the dirt that falls in toward your feet, you might be able to sit up, squeeze out of the coffin, and tunnel up and out.

Section 1 of 3:

How to Escape a Coffin Underground

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The faster you breathe, the faster you'll run out of oxygen. You'll have enough oxygen in the coffin to last about 5½ hours, so conserve it while you can!^{[1]
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This will prevent dirt from falling into your mouth and suffocating you when you start digging your way out. If you don't have a handkerchief or a bandana on your person, wriggle your arms out of your shirt sleeves. Next, push the shirt up and tie the sleeves together above your head.

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Punch the wooden coffin lid to break it. With as much force as you can muster in the cramped space, thrust your fists toward the underside of the coffin lid. Your goal is to break the lid so that the dirt on top of it falls in and you can sit up.
- You can also try banging against the lid of the coffin with a sharp or heavy object, if there's one close at hand. This TikTok by @steveslife suggests using a rock, but that means you'd have to be buried with one.
Grab fistfuls of the falling dirt in your hands and push it toward your feet as quickly as possible. Try to keep the dirt from piling on your torso or head, or the weight of it will pin you to the bottom of the coffin.
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Sit up and slowly claw your way through the soil to the surface. When enough dirt has redistributed into the coffin, sit up and stick your head and arms through the hole in the coffin. Keep grabbing dirt and pushing it below you as you go to tunnel like a mole. Eventually, you should break through the surface and pull yourself free!
- This TikTok by @overtime shows an animation of what escaping a coffin buried underground would look like!

Section 2 of 3:

Is it possible to get out of a coffin underground?

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No, it's virtually impossible to get out of a coffin once it's buried. Most modern coffins are made of steel, which you'll never be able to break through. Even if you requested to be buried in a pine box, though, you would have to be as strong as a martial arts fighter or a trained weightlifter to punch through the lid.^{[2]
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Research source} Once you punched through the lid, you'd be buried in an avalanche of dirt, which would crush you and suffocate you to death.^{[3]
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- The good news is it's also virtually impossible to be buried alive! Modern-day doctors verify that people are dead before burying them. Furthermore, most bodies are embalmed after death, which is when a mortician replaces the blood with a preservative liquid that prevents them from decaying too fast. There's no way someone could survive that process, so by burial, the person is definitely no longer alive.^{[4]
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Section 3 of 3:

The History of Safety Coffins

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The fear of being buried alive spread in the 1800s. In the 19th century, some people felt deeply concerned about being declared dead and then buried when they were still alive. Part of the reason for this phobia could be some chilling stories involving premature burial by the famous American writer, Edgar Allen Poe. It could also have been due to the terrible pandemics and plagues during these centuries that led to thousands of deaths and fast burials.^{[5]
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- Did you know? The first United States president, George Washington, was so worried he would be buried alive that he insisted his body be stored outside of his tomb for 3 days after his death. That way, his family could make sure he was really dead!
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Safety coffins were invented to save people buried alive. In answer to some people's fears (and to make a little money), inventors designed safety coffins. These coffins had built-in safety measures that people buried alive could use to signal that they weren't dead. Sometimes they could even escape! For example, in 1792, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick commissioned the first recorded safety coffin. It had a window, an air tube, and a lock on the lid instead of nails. He was buried with two keys: one for the coffin and one for the door to his tomb.^{[6]
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Research source} Here are some other safety coffins that were developed over the next couple of centuries:
- The bell tolls! In one design, a cord would be tied to the dead person's hand at one end and attached to a bell aboveground at the other. By pulling the cord and making the bell ring, the person in the coffin could let the cemetery groundskeeper know they were alive.
- Ew, what's that smell? In another strange iteration, a trumpet-like tube would be attached to the coffin and poke out of the ground. The priest or whoever tended the graves could pass by the grave every day and smell the air coming out of the tube. If the air smelled foul, that was a sign the body was decaying, meaning the person was truly dead.
- Hey, you up? In 2010, an innovative casket design featuring an audio message system was patented. This system allowed the dead person's family to play music and audio files for them while they lay in their grave. This wasn't so much a safety coffin as a coffin that allowed communication between the living and the deceased (for those who believe that's possible).
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Safety coffins were never mass-produced because premature burial is rare. Despite the panic around being buried alive, safety coffins never really made it off the ground. Even back in the 1800s, premature burials were rare. Today, there's an even lesser chance that you'll be buried alive. Multiple people confirm a person's death, from their doctors and nurses to the mortician who embalms and prepares their body for interment.^{[7]
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