Meet the Shore woman spending 30 hours in a casket for Six Flags Coffin Challenge

JACKSON - Meet the undead.

Well, the pretending-to-be-dead, maybe?

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More than 4,300 people from all over the country applied to become a Coffin Dweller in Six Flags Great Adventure's 30-hour Coffin Challenge, which is set for Sunday and Monday, Oct. 28 and 29, at the Jackson park.

Among the six finalists is Leticia Gomez, 46, of Howell. She is, we kid you not, a funeral director with 25 years of experience.

“It sounded exciting. When I saw it, I was like ‘I want to try that.’ I just put the application in and lo and behold, never thought in a million years" she'd be selected, Gomez said.

Her friends and family think she's a bit off her rocker. 

"They think I’m crazy," she said. "Some of them think I’m crazy, my nieces and nephews are like ‘you got it!’ My sisters and everything, I have a big family, they’re like ‘you’re crazy! 30 hours!” I’m like ‘it’s not that bad!’ It’s exciting just to be part of it."

The Coffin Dwellers will spend 30 hours in a wooden coffin, with surprise visits from Fright Fest freaks, limited cellphone usage, meals in-coffin and one six-minute bathroom break per hour.

Everyone who completes the 30 hours will win two 2019 gold season passes and dining passes, two Haunted Maze Express passes and $300. Oh, and they get to keep their coffins.

"That actually would be my second coffin," Gomez said. "I had one before when we lived in North Carolina. I used it to display it for Halloween and keep it in the garage, standing up, the rest of the time." She gave it away to a friend — who uses it as a cooler at parties — when she moved to New Jersey.

Gomez first become interested in the funeral industry when she was young.

"A little bit of curiosity when I was younger," she said. "I had a neighbor who was a funeral director. Now and then she would be driving by the block with her hearse. We used to talk and she would tell me what she does and what’s involved, and was like ‘I think I want to do that.’”

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She is especially drawn to embalming and preparing the deceased for their funerals.

"The dedication, for my part, is the embalming," Gomez said. "I’m a pretty good embalmer, I always present that person the way they looked. That memory picture, it’s a presentable memory picture for them. Whether it’s a request or something special that they want reconstructed, I’m on it."

She says she  is looking for an internship and employment in the field in New Jersey.

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The other Coffin Challenge competitors are:

• Brandon Hardy of Bear, Delaware, a paranormal investigator
• Vincent Gatens of Staten Island, a Navy veteran
• Jennifer Gorden of Philadelphia,  a Halloween fanatic with aspirations of being a mortician
• Shane Madak of Groton, Connecticut, active duty in the Navy on a nuclear submarine
• Dan Murter of Levittown, Pennsylvania – his life's passions are Halloween, haunts and horror, and he met his wife acting professionally in a haunt

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The Coffin Challenge kicks off at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 28 with a Laying to Rest Ceremony and ends at 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 29 with a Raising from the Dead Ceremony.

"Hopefully I have my friends and family come out and support me and just have fun with it," Gomez said. 

"I definitely plan to stay until the end."

For more information on Fright Fest and the Coffin Challenge, visit sixflags.com/greatadventure.

Ilana Keller: Twitter: @ilanakeller; 732-643-4260; ikeller@gannettnj.com