A burial in North Philadelphia took a shocking turn when the platform over a grave collapsed, sending pallbearers tumbling into the burial plot—casket and all.
The incident happened Friday at Greenmount Cemetery during the funeral of Benjamin Aviles.
In a now widely circulated video, the pallbearers were carrying the casket to the grave when the ground beneath them suddenly gave way. Several men plunged into the hole, with Aviles’ son knocked unconscious after the casket reportedly landed on top of him.
“It was just a horrible incident that happened at a bad moment,” said Maribel Rodriguez, Aviles’ stepdaughter. She added that all of the men who fell in sustained injuries to their legs, hands, or backs—though none are considered serious. “His face was in the mud,” Rodriguez said of Aviles’ son. “He was out like a light.”
Rodriguez places blame on both Greenmount Cemetery and Rodriguez Funeral Home (no relation), citing unsafe and unstable burial conditions.
“The whole thing was trembling. It was like—wobbly. It was all wet and soaked."
The site still shows broken boards at the burial plot, but Aviles has since been laid to rest. As of now, neither the funeral home nor the cemetery has commented publicly.
Rodriquez said:
“I think they should apologize. There should be some reimbursement involved, being that the ceremony was interrupted. Nothing was done properly.”
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People were outraged at the cemetery who presumably set up the platform.
Calls for litigation soon filled the comments.
Folks had some questions about what was visible of the gravesite from the video.
Many commenters had unlocked a new fear.
Because no one was seriously injured, jokesters came out in the comments.
Really, people said, this is another liability of traditional funeral practices versus cremation.
While the pallbearers suffered some minor physical injuries, there were no further deaths or serious injuries.
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