Posted on 04/09/2025 11:21:53 AM PDT by fidelis
WASHINGTON — A group of pallbearers carrying a loved one's casket fell into a grave after a platform collapsed at a Philadelphia cemetery.
Video from the funeral shows the group of men carry the casket from an SUV to the grave. As the pallbearers begin to lower the casket, the platform above the burial plot gives out and plunges them into the grave.
The scene unfolded on Friday at the Greenmount Cemetery in Philadelphia as family and friends mourned the loss of Benjamin Aviles, WPVI reported.
"It was just a horrible incident that happened at a bad moment," Aviles' stepdaughter Maribelle Rodriguez told WPVI.
The pallbearers suffered injuries on their legs, hands and back, Rodriguez said to the local outlet.
Aviles' son was among the pallbearers and was knocked out following the incident.
"The casket lay on top of him, and he was out like a light with his face in the mud," Rodriguez described to WPVI.
Aviles' stepdaughter said she blames the cemetery, and the funeral home involved in the incident, citing that the platform was "wobbly" and the wood was "all wet and soaked."
An obituary posted by the funeral home shows Aviles died on March 21 at age 61 due to complications related to heart issues.
"I think they should apologize," Rodriguez said to the Philadelphia outlet. "There should be some reimbursement, being that the ceremony was interrupted; nothing was done properly."
WPVI reported that on Monday some of the boards and broken wood could still be seen at the burial site.
In the Roger Corman horror film Tales of Terror (1962) with Peter Lorre, Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone, two crooked undertakers save money by secretly dumping the each of the corpses in a pit in the woods and then re-using the casket for the next funeral’s deceased.
They would be very upset about the splintered boards described.
Unusual astrological fact. These are all Geminis: Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, Donald Trump and myself. Used to getting our way.
I was thinking the same thing.
"Pass me a beer, bruh. Hey, remember that time we all fell in Uncle Bennie's grave at his funeral? Ha Ha! You should have seen your face, man!
No, nothing could possibly go wrong there...
The deceased let his friends and family down one last time.
They can say that they had one foot in the grave.
A group of pallbearers carrying a loved one's casket fell into a grave
In any... case, that's quite the group discount. Bury one get six free.
If they had waited until tombmorrow, it would have been too late, but soma tarry.
I’ve done a few military funeral honors at that cemetery. The problem is the ground is very rocky, so the grave diggers sometimes have to excavate large holes, much larger than normally needed for a casket. The platforms they build over the holes for the ceremony are shaky at best. A few times I felt like I was walking a plank. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often.
just damn!!...
even if, I definitely heard the underboards crack real good. someone left out a cross member or 2...
lol... you get The Best Award IMHO... and I havent scrolled past you yet!!
Badda-Boom!!
To be fair, they were carrying a lot of dead weight
Still. I’m apall’ed
That was a great opening gambit!
There was a young fellow named Hall
Who fell in the spring in the fall.
‘Twould have been a sad thing
Had he died in the spring,
But he didn’t, he died in the fall.
“I’m takin’ y’all with me” /s
I will bury you!
And you. And you, And you over there.
And Jill St. John was stunning.
Cutting out the middle man.
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