Turkish Morgue Prepared for the Undead

It sounds like a Monty Python skit, but it’s not. According to Reuters, officials in the rural city of Malatya, Turkey, have upgraded their morgue due to a longstanding local fear of being buried alive. The bells and whistles now include motion sensors and alarms, door handles inside the refrigerator compartments, and triggers that pop the doors open if the inhabitants’ feet move.

This is far from the first time people have tried to alleviate fear of being buried alive. The Victorians had a mortal terror of it for some reason, and designed various types of safety coffins. The idea was that should a person wake up in a coffin he could trigger something—anything from a simple bell to a virtual conflagration of fireworks—to signal that he was alive. Although the designs still exist, there is no evidence of any such coffin ever having been activated.

So perhaps it is not such a surprise that modern technology has given us yet a new way to get rid of an old fear. These morgue enhancements may not be such a smooth move in case of the zombie apocolypse, but otherwise we say everybody deserves a last chance at life!