INTERRED 120 HOURS.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17277, 13 December 1927, Page 7

INTERRED 120 HOURS.

DUSSELDORF EXPERIMENT. PROVES SUCCESSFUL. (Austrian anrf N.Z. Cable Assn.' BERLIN, December i?. After a voluntary interment, lasting 120 hours, a .resident of Dusseldorf, who was buried alive, was uncovered on Saturday night in the presence of 5000 people. The man claimed to have a knowledge of the methods of Indian fakirs, and he declared he could remain alive although placed in a coffin and buried in a grave. When he was uncovered he said he was suffering nothing worse than a severe headache. He lost 221 b. as a result of being buried for five days. He apparently went into a kind of a trance. The case will be subject of a most careful investigation.

The experiment was carried out under proper precautions to prevent fraud. The police and doctors were strongly represented. Before he stepped into the' coffin the man ate a substantial meal and was overhauled by the doctors, and searched for beef extract, lozenges, oxygen flasks, an.d other things inconsistent with his claims He thereupon nonchalantly drove half a dozen 'hatpins, into his cheeks and ears and neck, and calmly lay down in the coffin. He was enveloped in a band of cloth 10yds. long and the ends were sealed to prevent its removal. ,Tiie authorities insisted, that a small wooden shaft 9in. square should be left, in order that his face might be visible through a glass top. Then the coffin was lowered and the grave was filled m.