LIVING WOMAN IN A COFFIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 3, 3 January 1920, Page 15

LIVING WOMAN IN A COFFIN.

SEXTON'S DISCOVERT. The case of a living woman who was placed In a coffin apparently dead, and awaking just before a post mortem examination was to be made, came to light recently says the Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Mall." From details which I have been able to obtain the case is evidently one ot veronal poisoning. A hospital nurse named Minna Braun, aged 25, was found lying under the trees lv the Grunewald Forest, between Berlin and Potsdam, by the driver of a motor cai belonging to the Armistice Commission. She was soaked to the skin, and ceased to breathe before taken to a doctor. The doctor tried aU possible tests, including the well known seallug-wax test. All massage and other methods of restoring breathing proved unavailing, and after long efforts the doctor declared life to be extinct. The young woman was accordingly placed in a coffin, taken to the mortuary chapel, and the next day a post mortem examination was to have taken place owing •to certain marks of strangulation on the throat and Indications of poisoning. I The police doctor, sexton, and two grave-diggers went to the mortuary chapel and removed the coffin Hd, and were about to lift out the body when the sexton, to his i horror, felt a slight movement of the heart. Instantly the girl was carried to the pospital and plunged Into a hot bath and treated with electric massage. Presently she opened her eyes, said a few unintelligible words, and then fell again Into a stupor from which she has not yet awakened, though if there are no complications it is hoped she will Uve. Professor Rautenberg, who is in charge of the case, said: "It is one of those very rare cases where Uterally every sign of life !Is extinct, rigor mortis having apparently set in." He refused to express an opinion of the cause, but added that veronal poisoning was indicated. An unhappy love affair Is assumed, although the woman has not yet been able to make a statement. Some medical authorities state that veronal poisoning acting on hysterical persons, may produce aU the appearances of death.