Is it possible to dig yourself out of a coffin?

Yeh, no matter how I try to think of possibilities, there are just too many problems. The weight of the dirt is one thing, the fact that you can't dig upwards without letting displaced soil flow downwards..

(What I mean is, any hole you manage to dig, would be instantly filled with more dirt, again and again, so how the heck do you dig, when all you get is more dirt - but not only that, you would have to be able to dig AND move your body upwards through the dirt - where does the dirt go? How do you displace enough dirt to fit a human body when there's dirt all over you, and thus enormous pressure, and where does the displaced soil go? The coffin isn't big enough)

.. so you can never have enough room for a human body until you're in the surface. How would she BREATHE with dirt packed tightly against her face all the time? How come she didn't bruise herself on the rocks and dirt that would be constantly tightly against her face?

I just can't understand the mechanics of how this could even theoretically be possible, even if Uma's character was replaced with a really strong robot from 2000 years in the future - the mechanics of it just .. how do you even move your arm through the dirt to be able to dig upwards, when anything you do, will just bring more dirt around you?

In that case, sometimes you might need some help. 😀

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzh-Db6tK-o

I would really like to know how they explained this in the movie - it's been awhile, but I don't remember them actually showing where Uma's character would put all that displaced soil (many times the size of a human body would be the minimum amount for her to be able to escape - or at least a 'human body size' at a time).

In other words, how the heck do you dig UPWARDS without having a large room underneath you to put all that displaced soil?

A couple sitting on it is not the same thing - dirt consists of tiny particles that can be manipulated in various ways - in essence, dirt or sand is a large amount of tiny, lightweight particles packed very near each other, whereas a 'couple' (why a couple? Why not just any people? Do you have a reason for this specific relationship requirement for your test?) consists of two large, concentrated masses that can't be manipulated one small part at a time, like sand can.

There's a reason you can dig sand, and you can't dig a human body. Bride wouldn't have to have the strength to lift two people from that angle, all she'd have to have the strength and skill to do is 'dig through malleable substance'.

However, intuitively, it seems impossible. I would love to have this tested somehow, to know exactly how much force or strength is needed, how much that sand weighs, does it matter that some of it can be made to fall into the coffin, and so on. And what would it take to dig yourself out from that.

If a strong robot could be manufactured, this situation could be replicated and tested out.

I kinda spoke too soon... there's a Mythbusters episode about this? WHAT? I haven't seen it fully yet, but it seems interesting enough (though why did the punch-thug use a boxing glove when measuring the punch power, is a question I can't figure out the answer to as of yet).

You can find it easily enough in youtube, so no point in adding a link.

Ok, I watched the "Part One" (didn't bother looking for another part), and I see that they botched the experiment.

I am not saying it's possible to punch your way out of a cascent and then dig yourself up from a grave, but the robotic arm, as many of the comments point out, is punching too robotically on one spot and one height. It's not varying the punches, it's not punching deeper when the lid cracks, it's not punching on different spots, etc. So that's one failure.

The fist also doesn't look like as tough and powerful as a Martial Artist's Pai Mei-trained fist that's trained to break wood, would HAVE to be. Bruce Lee trained punching on all kinds of materials, to harden the knuckles and everything. There are people that have 'ironlike' knuckles, because they have used it so much for punching.

This fist-shaped object was badly attached (it's seen to bend and tilt (and almost wobble), not being steady at all). Did they test its .. what's the term, tensile strength? to match with not only a human fist, but a hardcore-trained Martial Artist's 'iron fist' knuckles' hardness?

Also, the dirt that was poured on the coffin - did they know how shallow or deep that grave in the movie was supposed to be? And why was it only poured on one spot, it should've at least covered the whole coffin area. Is the 'dirt pressure' going to be the same as it would be on a regular grave that's freshly filled? They didn't even seem to measure / calculate these things at all.

The "can a human break a coffin lid by punching from that position" is not even the biggest question here. The bigger question is, could a human dig themselves out of a coffin that has a broken hole on its lid, through all that dirt?

The problem with digging from this situation that to dig, you have to have a place to put the displaced soil, and there's no other place than the coffin. So I would just like to know the technical details of the digging and soil replacement - how did Uma's character do it, where and how did she place the displaced soil, etc.

This was not even touched in that mythbusters 'part one' (perhaps in part 2?), and I would very much like to know.

They shouldn't also limit the punch strength and such to what some thug can do, they should calculate and test until they find exactly how much strength you would need at MINIMUM to do it, and then compare how much strength a woman can have at MAXIMUM, and then do the math from there.