Last night was the night I had been especially anticipating all week. I toured the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, which is one of the most haunted places in the world, featured on Ghost Hunters, Scariest Places on Earth, and many other paranormal shows. It served as a tuberculosis hospital for about 50 years throughout the 20th century when the epidemic was widely spreading. It's estimated that around 63,000 people died there.
The tour started off on the right end where the body chute was. I walked down all 526 feet to the bottom where the dead corpses were tossed. Approximately one person died every hour at the peak of the disease. There was a morgue in the sanatorium, but it wasn't sustainable enough for the death rate.
Doctors performed several different treatments in an attempt to cure the disease. Patients were exposed to ultraviolet lights to try to prevent the spread of bacteria. They were put in sunrooms with artificial lights and on the roof to soak in the natural sunlight. This was also used as a treatment for patients to inhale fresh air. After these two main treatments failed, doctors initiated a surgery treatment that included the removal of muscles and ribs to allow patients' lungs to expand further and let in more oxygen. Remnants of these surgical tools were found after the hospital shut down.
Today, the building stands after suffering from vandalism and trespassers. Every window is broken out and spray paint lines the walls. The current owners are trying hard to preserve it, but they claim to have trespassers every single night. The trespassing has gotten so bad over the years that the owners decided to move on-site in an attempt to scare away potential trespassers. One of their more recent trespassing incidents consisted of three teenage boys who busted the doors out and broke their way into the fourth floor. The owners said they would've never known, had they not heard shrieks of horror coming from inside. They found the boys in hysterics, begging to let them out. The door was unlocked, but the boys said "They won't let us leave." The owners replied with "Who won't let you leave?" Then all of a sudden the three broke through the door, slamming it so hard it broke into the concrete walls. You can still see deep marks in the wall where they pushed the door open. The owners truly believe these boys were being held captive by some of the spirits on the fourth floor. They said most trespassers run when they're about to be caught, but these boys stayed in that room and swore they couldn't get out.
We continued on our tour of walking through the entire sanatorium and hitting all five floors. We saw what used to be the kitchen, dining room, nurse's wing, and all the patient's rooms. When we got to the third floor, I knew right away what it used to be. The short doors and small door handles suggested that this was the children's wing. Both sick children and children whose parents were sick and couldn't care for them would stay in those rooms. Each room had four beds in it, in comparison to the two beds the adult patient's had in their rooms. We had an eight year old boy on our tour who seemed a little skeptical on this floor.
After the third floor, we skipped the fourth floor and went right to the fifth floor. We stood at room 502, where a nurse named Mary Hillenburg allegedly hung herself from the ceiling in 1928 after becoming pregnant out of wedlock. However, the current owners of the building and many paranormal investigators have said otherwise. Mary was pregnant with the child of one of the doctors who was already married. After finding out, he attempted to give her an abortion. Our tour guide described it as "an abortion gone horribly wrong." The botched abortion caused her to bleed uncontrollably. While still bleeding, the doctor, with the help of four other men, took her outside of room 502 and hung her. When she was found she was covered in blood from the waist down. Mary may have bled to death right away based on the amount of blood she lost, but the doctor who had an affair with her didn't want word getting out of a botched abortion. The baby's corpse was later found outside the hospital.
Now, pregnant women who tour this room claim to have weird sensations when entering it. This is nothing I can attest to, but it would be interesting to find out. According to out tour guide, on one of his previous tours a pregnant woman collapsed the second she stepped foot into the room and had to be carried out and escorted to the hospital.
The tour guide told us he saved the best part of the tour for last. We walked down the stairs to the fourth floor where we stood in front of a long, dark, empty hallway. He asked for a female volunteer, and before I could step forward someone already anxiously said they would. He told her to walk straight down the middle of the hallway. As she got halfway down the hallway you could see small shadows joining her as she walked past the open windows where the moonlight shined through. Nearly everyone in our group saw the figures, which appeared to be small children. Our guide told us they're said to be some of the children who died in the hospital from tuberculosis. As the volunteer neared the end of the hallway our guide told her to lift her arms out and parallel to the ground. She did so, and right after she did I saw the shadow of a man come out in front of the last window on the left. He was rocking back and forth with his arm swinging in and out of the moonlight. Everyone in our group gasped. My stomach dropped and I instantly felt sick. Along the way, our guide had showed us pictures people had taken on previous tours where figures showed up. I saw the pictures, but I didn't believe it was real until I saw it with my own eyes. I was filled with fear. My adrenaline was high. The volunteer walked back, claiming she felt too weird standing in that spot. There was an eerie sense in the room I couldn't shake. At this point, I was in a bit of a panic, doubting my own eyes. Believe me or not, I know what I saw was real and I encourage anyone who reads this to travel to Louisville, Kentucky and see it for themselves. But until then, I'll just continue to share my paranormal experience from the Waverly Hills Sanatorium.
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