Essie Dunbar was pronounced dead after an epileptic seizure in 1915, but when her sister arrived late to the funeral and asked to see her one last time, the family discovered she was alive and smiling in her coffin
The family of Essie Dunbar was left heartbroken when she tragically passed away at the tender age of 30, following an epileptic seizure. Her funeral was hastily organised and she was laid to rest in a wooden coffin six feet under in South Carolina, US over a hundred years ago.
However, her bereaved sister, who arrived late for the service, requested that the coffin be exhumed so she could bid her sibling a final farewell. The ensuing events were nothing short of astonishing. Upon opening the coffin, they found Essie very much alive and grinning back at them.
Not much is known about Essie’s early years. Born in 1885, she led a quiet, uneventful life, staying close to her kin.
While most of her family lived nearby, one sister resided in a neighbouring town. Essie’s life took a dramatic turn on a fateful summer day in 1915 when she suffered an epileptic seizure and collapsed, reports the Mirror.
In their state of shock and desperation, her family summoned medical assistance. Dr D.K. Briggs from Blackville was called upon to examine her.
To everyone’s dismay, he found no signs of life and declared her dead. Overwhelmed by grief, the family swiftly began making funeral arrangements, deciding to hold the service the next morning.
This timing was chosen to allow Essie’s sister to travel from the nearby town to bid her farewell.
The following day, Essie’s body was laid in a coffin. The funeral service was conducted by three ministers, but as it drew to a close, her sister had yet to arrive.
Faced with a tough choice, the family decided to proceed and bury her. Just minutes after the burial concluded, Essie’s sister arrived, leading to the reluctant exhumation of the coffin for a final goodbye.
However, as the coffin lid was unscrewed and lifted, Essie Dunbar shockingly sat up and smiled at her sister. The ministers officiating the service were thrown into a state of panic, resulting in all of them tumbling into the grave, with one even breaking some ribs, as reported in ‘Buried Alive’, published in 2002.
Even Essie’s own family ran away in fear, convinced they were witnessing a supernatural event as the seemingly resurrected woman climbed out of the coffin and attempted to follow them.
Astonishingly, following her terrifying experience, Essie went back to her peaceful existence. Accounts from years later reveal her toiling in the fields, harvesting cotton and living on her own.
She actually survived longer than the physician who had pronounced her deceased. “[Dunbar] has many friends today,” a local GP, Dr. O.D. Hammond, who had treated one of the injured ministers at the burial service, informed the Augusta Chronicle.
“She gets a nice-sized welfare check monthly and earns some money picking cotton.”
By the 1950s, she was recognised in the community, had mates and sustained herself through a combination of benefits and labour. Essie Dunbar passed away, this time genuinely, in 1962, at the age of 77, in hospital.
Regional papers covered her death with the headline ‘Final Funeral Held For South Carolina Woman’.