Haunted Hospitals

Of course, LGI has since become famous for another type of historical haunting. :shock:
 
I work some nights in a hospital , and can honestly say that it can be the creepiest place on earth sometimes . The room I work in is empty all day , but used for a few hours in the evening and when I'm there I'm usually alone . At night , the hospital is deathly quiet (apart from myself obviously) , and as such the slightest noise coming from the corridor seems amplified tenfold and can be a tad unnerving.

I think the creepiest thing I ever saw was an overturned wheelchair at the top of the stairs , it was lying on its side with one wheel spinning . Although I discovered there was a logical explanation (some guy had fallen out and down the stairs on his way out for a sly puff) , it scared the bejeezus out of me nevertheless and prompted an unsettling evening alone at work.
 
Recently heard a tale from a nurse about a Learning Disabilities home in the North of England. In one of the lounges all the furniture migrates to the center of the room during the night when it's shut off and nobody has access. She reckoned most nights she'd find the furniture piled together in a triangle shape.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
Recently heard a tale from a nurse about a Learning Disabilities home in the North of England. In one of the lounges all the furniture migrates to the center of the room during the night when it's shut off and nobody has access. She reckoned most nights she'd find the furniture piled together in a triangle shape.
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That's fantastic, I'd work there!
 
Naughty_Felid said:
Recently heard a tale from a nurse about a Learning Disabilities home in the North of England. In one of the lounges all the furniture migrates to the center of the room during the night when it's shut off and nobody has access. She reckoned most nights she'd find the furniture piled together in a triangle shape.
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That's cool! Ask her to set up a camera to film it.
 
My Mum's just called me from her hospital bed, she called me on video skype by accident so didn't realise this until I told her I was watching a live video of her bed sheets .. after talking her into letting me see her face (she was embarrassed because her hair wasn't brushed but naturally I told her she looked lovely) .. then she asked me what the loud music and then loud talking was in the background. There wasn't any, I'm sitting in our completely quiet living room, the Mrs was two rooms away in the kitchen .. so I've told her it's a haunted hospital phone call and she told me to shut up .. a bit weird though? .. I called my Sister afterwards to tell her about the call, she's on a rare noisy girl's night out with her mates. Odd.
 
Swifty said:
My Mum's just called me from her hospital bed, she called me on video skype by accident so didn't realise this until I told her I was watching a live video of her bed sheets .. after talking her into letting me see her face (she was embarrassed because her hair wasn't brushed but naturally I told her she looked lovely) .. then she asked me what the loud music and then loud talking was in the background. There wasn't any, I'm sitting in our completely quiet living room, the Mrs was two rooms away in the kitchen .. so I've told her it's a haunted hospital phone call and she told me to shut up .. a bit weird though? .. I called my Sister afterwards to tell her about the call, she's on a rare noisy girl's night out with her mates. Odd.
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Hope your mum get well soon.

It might be because microphones can pick up more than we can hear. I've seen videos on YT filmed inside apartments where the background noise from the street outside is almost annoying. I guess the owners of the videos are getting used to it and doesn't notice or it's the mic on the telephone which are capable of recording it.
 
Vardoger said:
Hope your mum get well soon.

It might be because microphones can pick up more than we can hear. I've seen videos on YT filmed inside apartments where the background noise from the street outside is almost annoying. I guess the owners of the videos are getting used to it and doesn't notice or it's the mic on the telephone which are capable of recording it.
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Thanks for the well wishes for my Mum Vardy and yes, I reckon it's just interference .. but it's more fun to tell her the wards haunted.
 
Swifty said:
My Mum's just called me from her hospital bed, she called me on video skype by accident so didn't realise this until I told her I was watching a live video of her bed sheets .. after talking her into letting me see her face (she was embarrassed because her hair wasn't brushed but naturally I told her she looked lovely) .. then she asked me what the loud music and then loud talking was in the background. There wasn't any, I'm sitting in our completely quiet living room, the Mrs was two rooms away in the kitchen .. so I've told her it's a haunted hospital phone call and she told me to shut up .. a bit weird though? .. I called my Sister afterwards to tell her about the call, she's on a rare noisy girl's night out with her mates. Odd.
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Best hopes for your fun mun.
 
An old article from 2004 has resurfaced...

At least Scrooge's spectral guests came only on one Christmas eve. For staff in hospitals around Britain, visits from beyond the grave could happen any night of the year. Mark Gould on the haunted wards where paranormal events can trouble even clinical minds

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/dec/22/health.healthandwellbeing
 
This just came up on a Facebook 'Personal Ghost Stories' page.
As it's so specific I reckon it might be gone soon so I've nicked it.

Ward 12 of Macclesfield hospital is notorious, particularly bay 14. Many patients have complained of the apparition of a little girl (12 being the erstwhile paediatric ward) in that bay.

Makes me wonder if that's why it's been cleared out and a perfectly useable room is now used for storage. I cleared it out only a fortnight ago and put a bed in there, thinking we could use the extra bed and was quite surprised to find the bed gone and the place full of junk again when I arrived for my next nightshift.

I'll relate a couple of incident's as they both happened in the same week. Another auxiliary returned from his break which he took in an old recliner stored in bay 14, "I'm not taking my break in there again" he said, on his return. "What, with all the junk and stuff?" I said. "No." he said, "There was a bloody ghost in there."

A young girl in a blue dress had appeared and stood for some time watching him. I pressed him for more details but he said he didn't wish to discuss it because he was in shock, except to say that she vanished leaving a "disgusting sickly sweet smell".

Also, same week, earlier this month, an agency nurse had to go home in a state of shock. Given that nurses are fairly hardened to tense situations, this came as something of a surprise to us. She'd been on duty in the same corridor, that corridor being particularly dark after lights out, and she saw a patient in her pyjamas go into the toilet.

All of her patients that night were extremely elderly and not mobile so, fearing she might fall, she rushed to the toilet only to find it empty, when a voice called her name in her ear, she turned to find the corridor empty and all of her patients asleep in their beds. She rushed out of the ward in hysterics.
I always try to pick shifts up on that ward.
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'I always try to pick shifts up on that ward.' - that's the spirit! :bthumbup:
 
I've spent some time in Macclesfield hospital. Once, when I had an argument with a van windscreen (I got a couple of scars, but the windscreen was a total write-off - so who won that one, buddy?!) And later, when my dad was ill.

Nothing supernatural to report, unfortunately. But I do have a friend who works as a nurse there - so I will be interrogating next time I bump into her.
 
GerdaWordyer said:
Thanks. Good link, I recommend clicks!
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We used to live in Aldershot and my daughter was one of the last generation of babies to be born in Aldershot Military hospital.
I recall it as a very weird and gothic place.
The main, dead straight, central corridor seemed impossibly long as if, TARDIS like, it could somehow far exceed the length of the building.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
We used to live in Aldershot and my daughter was one of the last generation of babies to be born in Aldershot Military hospital.
I recall it as a very weird and gothic place.
The main, dead straight, central corridor seemed impossibly long as if, TARDIS like, it could somehow far exceed the length of the building.
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I used to work in Aldershot and live just outside the town. There's not really any more to add.
 
jandzmom said:
And on another hospital topic...

Considering what an A-wipe markbellis is being, I'm not going to bother posting the other fortean hospital stories my friend shared with me.

HOWEVER, if anyone is interested in a hilarious story my nurse friend shared with me about her first Christmas Eve rotation in the ER, which involved a Christmas ham and a patient in stirrups denying it's existence, message me.

Every Christmas Eve, for the rest of my life, I will giggle and remember.

JandZmom
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I was (for many years) an A&E (ED) Charge Nurse (equivalent to a U.S Head Nurse) and a male version of a U.K. Nursing Sister. I’ve seen some very interesting things inside men AND women. We have removed:

large...I mean LARGE beach pebbles from a lady. Who kept them in place with oversized Rusty safety pins that she had pierced her lady garden with.
Small chicken (semi frozen) again inside a woman.
A large can of Lynx deodorant (inside a chap)
a lightbulb (male patient)
A housepainting brush handle snapped off During an over enthusiastic bout of self love (female)

I know our Consultant trauma Doctor had a personal collection of X rays showing all sorts of things lodged where they didn’t ougtta be. He used to test the junior Doctors when they rotated through ED...”can you tell me what THIS is?”

I remember a whole gaggle a medics, nurses and paramedics all standing round the light box laughing their heads off as they looked at an abdominal Xray with an obstruction in the transverse Colon that looked like a blurry missile with 2 D cell batteries. This was a 10’’ Dildo running on full power that had burrowed its way almost a foot inside his large intestine. It was blurry because it was still going at full pelt you could see the guys abdomen shivering when you examined him...which we all did (for medical reasons obviously) and if you listened with a stethoscope it sounded like Metallica were holding a concert in his guts. He needed surgery to get the blighter out.

message is. Don’t put things in you that you can’t guarantee you can’t get out easily.
 
Nick Smith said:
I was (for many years) an A&E (ED) Charge Nurse (equivalent to a U.S Head Nurse) and a male version of a U.K. Nursing Sister. I’ve seen some very interesting things inside men AND women. We have removed:

large...I mean LARGE beach pebbles from a lady. Who kept them in place with oversized Rusty safety pins that she had pierced her lady garden with.
Small chicken (semi frozen) again inside a woman.
A large can of Lynx deodorant (inside a chap)
a lightbulb (male patient)
A housepainting brush handle snapped off During an over enthusiastic bout of self love (female)

I know our Consultant trauma Doctor had a personal collection of X rays showing all sorts of things lodged where they didn’t ougtta be. He used to test the junior Doctors when they rotated through ED...”can you tell me what THIS is?”

I remember a whole gaggle a medics, nurses and paramedics all standing round the light box laughing their heads off as they looked at an abdominal Xray with an obstruction in the transverse Colon that looked like a blurry missile with 2 D cell batteries. This was a 10’’ Dildo running on full power that had burrowed its way almost a foot inside his large intestine. It was blurry because it was still going at full pelt you could see the guys abdomen shivering when you examined him...which we all did (for medical reasons obviously) and if you listened with a stethoscope it sounded like Metallica were holding a concert in his guts. He needed surgery to get the blighter out.

message is. Don’t put things in you that you can’t guarantee you can’t get out easily.
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Or, at least, put 'em on a long string...
 
Reading this thread reminded me of a story i think i read in the FT years ago, the story goes that there waa a bed in a particular hospital ICU, (i cant remember where) that was suposedly haunted, that any patient that was in that particular bed would die within days of being there, this happened a number of times and the death always happened on a friday evening, an investigation was launched by the hospital in to why this was happening, in the end it turned out that the deaths were down to the cleaning lady, coming in on a friday to polish the floors with a buffer, would unplug the life support machine of the patient to plug in the buffer.
(This may just be an urban legend IDK)
 
Souleater said:
Reading this thread reminded me of a story i think i read in the FT years ago, the story goes that there waa a bed in a particular hospital ICU, (i cant remember where) that was suposedly haunted, that any patient that was in that particular bed would die within days of being there, this happened a number of times and the death always happened on a friday evening, an investigation was launched by the hospital in to why this was happening, in the end it turned out that the deaths were down to the cleaning lady, coming in on a friday to polish the floors with a buffer, would unplug the life support machine of the patient to plug in the buffer.
(This may just be an urban legend IDK)
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I've heard that yarn in every hospital I've worked in! :chuckle:
 
Souleater said:
... in the end it turned out that the deaths were down to the cleaning lady, coming in on a friday to polish the floors with a buffer, would unplug the life support machine of the patient to plug in the buffer.
(This may just be an urban legend IDK)
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escargot said:
I've heard that yarn in every hospital I've worked in! :chuckle:
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It's a well-known UL. The basic storyline (cleaner / janitor causing a mysterious problem) dates back a long time. The ICU / floor polisher version was a breakout UL circa 1996, proliferating from South Africa.

Here are Snopes' summary and the archived comprehensive FAQ for the 1996 South African 'outbreak'.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/polished-off/
http://web.archive.org/web/20040624065333/http://www.legends.org.za/arthur/cleanfaq.htm
 
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EnolaGaia said:
It's a well-known UL. The basic storyline (cleaner / janitor causing a mysterious problem) dates back a long time. The ICU / floor polisher version was a breakout UL circa 1996, proliferating from South Africa.

Here are Snopes' summary and the archived comprehensive FAQ for the 1996 South African 'outbreak'.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/polished-off/
http://web.archive.org/web/20040624065333/http://www.legends.org.za/arthur/cleanfaq.htm
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Thought it probably waa lol
 
Last week I heard a radio interview with novelist Ian Hamilton. He recounted his experience following surgery at St Michael's Hospital in Toronto in 2009 to repair an aortic aneurysm. As he was being wheeled from the recovery area to his bed on the ward, an orderly told Hamilton that the ward was located in the oldest part of the hospital building. The orderly sternly warned him not to speak to any nuns he might happen to see. When Hamilton asked why not, the orderly replied that the nuns weren't real but were in fact ghosts who appeared when a patient was on the verge of death. Hamilton said he didn't see any nuns during his hospital stay, which was fortunate for him.
 
GingerTabby said:
Last week I heard a radio interview with novelist Ian Hamilton. He recounted his experience following surgery at St Michael's Hospital in Toronto in 2009 to repair an aortic aneurysm. As he was being wheeled from the recovery area to his bed on the ward, an orderly told Hamilton that the ward was located in the oldest part of the hospital building. The orderly sternly warned him not to speak to any nuns he might happen to see. When Hamilton asked why not, the orderly replied that the nuns weren't real but were in fact ghosts who appeared when a patient was on the verge of death. Hamilton said he didn't see any nuns during his hospital stay, which was fortunate for him.
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He was lucky to survive surgery for an aortic aneurysm, let alone to avoid having to speak to a nun. Out of the blue last week I got an invitation to have a scan to determine whether I had an a.a. (presumably as part of a research programme). The very "helpful" attached leaflet indicated that, if I had one, the situation would merely be monitored but if I required surgery there was a warning that some patients don't survive on the operating table, whereas they might have survived without intervention. Don't think I'll bother then.
 
PeteS said:
He was lucky to survive surgery for an aortic aneurysm, let alone to avoid having to speak to a nun. Out of the blue last week I got an invitation to have a scan to determine whether I had an a.a. (presumably as part of a research programme). The very "helpful" attached leaflet indicated that, if I had one, the situation would merely be monitored but if I required surgery there was a warning that some patients don't survive on the operating table, whereas they might have survived without intervention. Don't think I'll bother then.
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Yikes!! You've made a wise decision, PeteS. I had read that an aortic aneurysm is a very serious condition but I wasn't aware that the surgery to repair it was so risky. Not having the scan at least means you won't worry.

Surgery scares the hell out of me. I admit to being a wuss. My fear is probably a result of being blessed with good health, for which I am very thankful, and the few surgeries I've had have been for common ailments -- tonsils, appendix, gallbladder. My late partner had two surgeries to debulk a brain tumour. The procedures bought him some time, but not a great deal. Both operations were quite long: the first last seven hours and the second lasted five. The thought of being unconscious for such a long period of time scares me, although I know some surgeries can last much longer.

Interestingly, during the radio interview I mentioned in my earlier post, Ian Hamilton stated that he took up writing professionally during his recovery from the surgery. Writing was a form of therapy for him and he was able to make money out of it. I expect the recovery time for surgery for an aortic aneurysm is quite long so he must have had lots of time to hone his craft.
 
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