Author's note: Some see an Angel - others see an anchor. This image came from the Atlantis science ship while docked in Woods Hole. I was in my kayak when she appeared from more than 40 feet above me. Sooo spiritual.

Buried Alive

by Barry Beder

They thought they murdered me. Six boys stood above me with shovels, circling a mound of wet sand. I was buried under it, trapped. It’s weight pressed into my chest and pinned my arms. My sand-covered face was packed tight. I faced darkness, no air, no sound and no way out.

It occurred to me that my internship in London was not going well!

A few hours earlier it was a normal day. I woke up, got to work on time. Now I was buried underground, trying not to panic as cold, wet sand hardened and pressed around my ribs and face.

Eight weeks earlier, I had been a twenty-two-year-old psychology major, thrilled to be accepted into a training program in London. I tried to look the part, grew a beard, and bought a pipe. The beard never came and the pipe wouldn’t stay lit. Freud would not have been impressed.

The professional staff at the University of London’s Maudsley Hospital didn’t care. On my first day they handed me a badge: Nurse Beder. Then a ring of keys attached to a lanyard.

“Don’t ever wear those keys around your neck,” my supervisor said. “The kids might use them to strangle you.”

She smiled.

Nice kids, I thought. They weren’t, I found out.

Our in-patients were arsonists, violent offenders, and boys so disturbed they were sent from across the UK for study and treatment. I was assigned to the maximum-security adolescent unit.

Our group included one who burned his mother alive, another fire setter in our group burned down his father’s church—with the congregation inside in prayer.

Then there was Richard, who could not stop spitting. Even with enough meds to sedate a horse his spit range was accurate at a distance and struck without warning, like a rattlesnake.

And Christopher, Christopher didn’t need a story. You felt his anger before you saw him. Anger attached and followed him the way shadows follow most people.

Still, most days passed quietly. Soccer in the yard, chess, TV, all routine.

Until the sandpit.

It had rained the night before, leaving the sand thick and heavy. The next morning, after breakfast we were outside, the boys taking turns jumping, laughing. One of them asked if they could bury me, something they did to each other frequently.

“Sure,” I said.

In the first flurry of excitement the shovels of cold damp sand hit my chest, legs and arms as they disappeared.

A chill ran through me when

I tried to move my arms and nothing moved. I pushed harder, still nothing. I was stuck.

I decided to call it off. Faking a smile and hiding my worry I spoke decisively. “Alright, that’s enough, help me out.”

No one moved until Peter, one of the youngest boys stepped forward to uncover me when he was suddenly thrown backward, lifted off his feet with a punch to his chest.

It was Christopher. I hadn’t seen him come into the yard. He should not have been out. He circled me slowly then picked up a shovel.

I felt it then, the air changed. Christopher was in charge.

“Get another nurse,” I said, sharper “ now!”

Christopher’s voice grew louder

“If any of you try to uncover him I will kill you. We’re gonna bury Nurse Beder, “ he barked. “Let’s bury him!” he commanded.

Christopher picked up a shovel.

“Cover his face.” He yelled.

“Chris,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Not funny.”

The first shovel missed, but I could feel the sand spray across my mouth. The second load pushed against my neck, pushing my head on an angle.

The third quickly followed, filling my mouth before I could finish shouting.

I tried to spit it out but inhaled it instead. Grit. Mud.

Then more. A direct hit to my eyes. Darkness. I kept my eyes open but they were covered over, sealed open by sand.

I tried to breathe through my teeth. Nothing. I pushed air out, hoping to clear sand and make space to breathe. But more sand came in.

I could no longer move. I felt the added weight and pressure of more shovel loads as a stillness and a muted silence took over.

“I’m going to die,” I thought.

And then, anger rose. “What a stupid way to die,” I thought. “So stupid”

Then, I decided I did not want to die with my final thoughts calling myself stupid. I needed to be calm, to think clearly, to figure out how to escape.

Then nothing.

Above ground, Nurse Prince was looking out the window.

She later said it was the quiet that caught her attention. The yard was too still. And, there were no staff. Something must be wrong, she thought.

She ran out the kitchen door. The kids stood over me, silent and lifeless.

“Why are you alone?” she shouted at the kids. “Where is Nurse Beder?”

A boy pointed. “In the sand, we buried him” confessed one of the kids.

The first thing I remember was a distant sound, then movement near my face, then light.

Pressure lifting then air, thin gritty air and sand scraped from my mouth. I coughed, choking, dragging in a breath that burned all the way down. Light seeped back in as they cleared my eyes, then a blurry world emerged. Then clearer.

It was Nurse Prince. Her hands were holding my face, firm and steady.

“Uncover his legs” she yelled.

Then she placed her hands around my head and held me close.

“You’re alright,” she said. “You’re alright.”

I couldn’t answer. I felt her love and wanted to be held in her arms forever.

One week later, during the inquiry, a man in a white coat tapped his pipe against an ashtray.

“Why did you allow this, Nurse Beder?” he asked.

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I did not answer. I searched for an explanation.

Two years earlier my mother had died of cancer. We buried her the same day of my high school graduation. The same week my grandmother was sent to a nursing home. She lived with my family my entire life.

At her nursing home I was her only visitor, until I left for London. I promised I’d visit her upon my return. She said she would die if I stopped visiting.

I went to London and stopped visiting. She died.

The doctor tapped his pipe again, awaiting my response.

I mumbled an answer to the doctor’s question.

“I don’t know,” I said.

The truth of my past stayed where it always was. Buried!

I didn’t see Nurse Prince at that meeting. But I remember her in the sand, hands on my face, her voice pulling me back.

For a moment, it felt like something had been returned to me. Something I thought I’d lost for good.

What better way to end an internship than to climb out of a grave and remember how it feels to be held.

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