While awful, who's bright idea was it to allow this? The casket was "plus sized" - so the user was +sz, the weight of the casket and then most of the pallbearers were +sz. This needed special setup to handle all the weight.
Before you come for me, I'm also +sz. I'm not oblivious to our extra needs.
After attending funerals over the years. This one, I would remember.
My wife's aunt fell into a freshly dug grave and broke her hip. She still crawled out and drove home. Then, she found she was in pain and had the next neighbor drive her to the HR. Happened in her 80s.
The son of the deceased was knocked out & got a face full of mud. Hopefully he can laugh, when he comes to. As long as the concussion wasn’t too bad. 😬
Too much weight. When my mom passed away she hardly weighed anything. That coffin was still heavy. That and wet conditions. Accident waiting to happen.
I would definitely be uninvited from all future events after witnessing this mishap. I might not make a sound, but my entire body would be laughing. Sorry, not sorry.
For people holding their proverbial nose:
It has been covered by the local news, so don't hold comicsands in "contempt".
The family wanted a pompous burial (size and heft of the casket just paints the picture) with video footage, so please stop being so "offended" by the publication of it.
Funeral disasters they told us about in seminary: the minister who slipped into the hole and in his flailing took the widow down with him; the minister who forgot a funeral and came back with his family from a morning at the beach to a church full of pissed off mourners, etc. There are more
I won't pass the pics along but will 🙏 for the families and friends who are now not only morning but now suffering humiliation. All because someone thought it was funny. 😞
It also really helps to spread this on the internet to ease the suffering. We assume that everyone who enjoys these images while surfing the net, sincerely sympathizes with those involved. Thanks also to the news broadcast, well done
So I work as a cemetery groundskeeper. We dig the graves and set up a lowering device as shown here. It appears what happened was that the ground was probably rocky and they created a larger hole from extracting them. The platform could probably support the weight of the LD and the casket...
but not the pallbearers as well. Someone messed up and its entirely on the cemetery (or the vault company, if they set it up.) The Funeral Home has no say in anything, they aren't at fault for any of it.
Unstable ground is a pretty dangerous thing to be standing on, I filled in a dangerous pond (dug out with flat sides akin to a grave) because I stood on one side of it and felt myself sinking as it collapsed under me, but for it to happen at a time of sadness & grief, that's truly awful...
Pastor here. This is relatively common, especially in sandy or wet burial areas. I've fallen in. I've had mourners and pallbearers fall in. If it happens to you, know you're not the first nor will you be the last. Thurs far, each family has seen it as one last joke from their loved one.
This reminds me little bit of my dad's funeral where most of the pallbearers were old and they almost dropped him. Just having it almost happen was traumatizing.
As a pallbearer at my mom’s funeral this would have been very unexpected & definitely awful. But damn, it also would have been funny after the fact. Kind of like she’s saying I’m not ready yet!
My experience is the cemetery grave diggers and vault company prep the burial site though, not the funeral director (unless they have a larger organization that also sells the vaults and does the ground prep as a one stop business)
Awful? You wanna hear awful? I accidentally sucked a rag into the hose on my vacuum and hurt my back, and all my gf did was laugh. It hurts, dammit, and all I can do is sit here and complain to you.
This is a ridiculously unsafe tradition...people, many of them often older, usually of different height, wearing slick soled dress shoes, walking around with a heavy casket on steps, grass, hills, etc. sometimes wet or snowy. I've been a pallbearer a few times where I thought we were going down.
My great aunt slipped and ended up with one leg in my grandmother’s grave wedged against the casket. The funeral staff pulled her up a little dirty but unharmed. She turned to the crowd and burst out laughing saying “I have had one foot in the grave for years now. This time it was for real.”
Have a friend who’s family used to celebrate and toast the dearly departed the night before the funeral. Well you can only imagine the next day. They stopped doing that when a bunch of them fell in.
Comments
Alright, it's a shame and I'm sorry that they were hurt. That said...
Suppose the dearly departed had a sense of humor?
Before you come for me, I'm also +sz. I'm not oblivious to our extra needs.
My wife's aunt fell into a freshly dug grave and broke her hip. She still crawled out and drove home. Then, she found she was in pain and had the next neighbor drive her to the HR. Happened in her 80s.
getting squashed under a casket bad
It has been covered by the local news, so don't hold comicsands in "contempt".
The family wanted a pompous burial (size and heft of the casket just paints the picture) with video footage, so please stop being so "offended" by the publication of it.
Oops.
None of us could help as we were laughing so much 😬
Everything is relative. -- A. Einstein
Sat night @ The Whiskey