According to a popular legend recorded by Joannes Zonaras and George Kedrenos, two 11th-century and 12th-century Byzantine Greek historians, the 5th century Roman emperor Zeno was buried alive in Constantinople after becoming insensible from drinking or an illness.

While many historical accounts of "premature burial" are based on folklore, the most famous "near-miss" involves the legendary 19th-century French author Anne-Charlotte-Lucile de Baudot, though in popular culture, the story of Eleanor Markham (1894) is the most documented. Markham was pronounced dead in Sprakers, New York, but as her coffin was being carried to the hearse, she began knocking on the lid. The most famous "unconfirmed" case is that of Edgar Allan Poe, who was so obsessed with the fear of being buried alive (taphephobia) that he wrote "The Premature Burial," though there is no evidence he suffered this fate himself. In 2026, the most chilling "verified" historical account belongs to Octavia Hatcher (1891) in Pikeville, Kentucky. Following her burial, other townspeople who had "died" of the same sleeping sickness began waking up. Her husband had her body exhumed, only to find the inside of the coffin lid scratched and her fingernails bloody. This tragedy led to the invention of "safety coffins" with bells and breathing tubes. Today, modern medical technology like ECGs and pulse oximeters has made the "buried alive" phenomenon a terrifying relic of the past, completely non-existent in the 2026 medical world.