There is a certain grain of salt one has to take when going out on an investigation. Either one can believe in the hype of a site and trust that the dozens of groups that have gone before have done their jobs and can verify the truth of the claims of a haunting, or one can go not believing anything and trying to find out things for himself. Most of the time the hype is a a marketing ploy (which was mentioned in a previous blog post), sometimes the hype is worthwhile.
This brings us to the story of the Old South Pittsburg Hospital in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. Up until the late 90's, this was the only hospital in the area for about 50 miles. This meant, of course, that the local residents had little choice in where to go for medical care. Since the hospital was already in an economically depressed area, the need was double. Unfortunately, many of the residents and employees of this facility did not get the care they needed. Due to various lawsuits and overall lack of (reported) care of its patients, the hospital was closed while a new hospital was built nearby.
Places that advertise a haunted history generally have things in common such as being a place of great shock or trauma (many atrocities may have happened on site). The result is a combination of legend and fact that mingles together in an urban legend type of stew. As the lines continue to blur around what might have happened and what actually happened, the legend grows and stories begin to develop.
Was the Old South Pittsburg Hospital a place of great suffering? Most likely, yes (it was a hospital, after all). Were atrocities committed there? That is debatable. A lot of former employees seem to have been mistreated while working there. A great number of employee deaths occurred while on the job. Were the patients abused? Well, some wrongful death lawsuits say probably so, as well.
Needless to say, the stories around the hospital began to grow after its closure. A local doctor purchased the property and so it sits today, billing itself as a "para-alternative research facility." What sort of things haunt this hospital? Most hospitals around the world have seen their share of trauma and shock. What makes the Pittsburg Hospital special?
Well, as with many sites in the southern part of the country, there are traces of Native American and bloody Civil War history in and around the area of the hospital. Some say these things amplify spirit activity, but if that were the case, the South would be swarming with ghosts and spirits everywhere you look.
We came to the hospital after having booked it for the 22 hour lockdown. Once inside we upacked the gear and decided which teams would cover which parts of the hospital. It was a big job (68,000 square feet is a lot of ground to cover!) This would be a good opportunity to do an extensive investigation. Spending the night in a haunted hospital? How could anyone pass that up?
We arrived at the hospital amid a thunderstorm. The air was crackling with lightning. It seemed a little cliche, but we were excited, nonetheless. A quick tour gave us the history and the layout of the place. One of the advantages of a facility like this was the strategic placement of IR cameras down various hallways. The administrators of the hospital actively record and stream live camera feeds for viewing on the internet (and will sell you footage of your investigation for a small fee). It would be worth it if you managed to catch something on your cameras or your DVR's and needed a secondary confirmation from another source.
That is, if you caught something.
We set out in teams of two, each team covering a different floor. The third floor was reported to have the most activity, but other paranormal groups reported the basement was were the action was. We spread out and began to investigate.
The third floor contained the operating rooms, the nursery, and the labor and delivery department (a little bit farther down the hall was the psych ward). Many reports of the sound of babies crying and children had been reported around the nursery area. This is an image of the nursery viewing area.
Down the hallway a bit is the psych ward. At the end of the hall is room 305, home to a woman named Nellie who had slipped into dementia in later life before she passed. The room is kept made up out of respect for her (who was apparently a beloved community figure.). This is an image of her room:
We did a lot of E.V.P. sessions in Nellie's room. Nellie's room was also the room of a woman named Irene who apparently was quite hateful towards women (naturally, our first inclination was to put our female investigators in there to get a response).
One of the prime ways to get a response from "the other side" is to fabricate a story and see what the response is. One of the early E.V.P.'s we caught was on the third floor near the nursery. Our story was that there was a tornado headed towards the hospital and everyone needed to find shelter. We caught a voice clearly saying "this way" as we headed toward the stairs. Because we were going to be in one investigative spot for an extended period, it was easier for us to do a couple of quick E.V.P. sessions (about 15-20 minutes) then stop and review the tape. It saves a lot of time consuming evidence review later on when one has to sit and review 12 hours of recording and try to remember what the context was.
We continued down into the basement. One of the hospital administrators had told us that there was a lot of poltergeist activity in the basement (one of the maintenance men had died down there of a heart attack). In the engineering room (with the open door) is where the death happened.
Although we did not see evidence of any poltergeist activity down there, we have not yet reviewed all of the video footage. Something might show up.
So we reviewed evidence late into the night and took a quick nap (if 3 hours is a quick nap). Most of the images we have seen of the "shadow people" seem to have been snapped during the daylight, so we prepared to make another sweep of the hospital to snap some more still pictures.
Unless the audio review shows us more evidence, the experience of Old South Pittsburg Hospital might go down as a busted investigation. For a place that advertises itself as "one of the South's most haunted hospitals" there seemed to be very little going on. Of course, we understand that not everything is going to happen every single time. But this is the second investigation in a row where a place has billed itself as almost "super haunted" and our investigation turned out little to no evidence.
So most paranormal investigating comes down to a roll of the dice to see if you're there on a lucky night. The places we've been to that no one has ever heard of has yielded very good results, and the "over-hyped" places (like Octagon Hall) seem to fizzle. Does the mere fact that word is out that a place is "haunted" and celebrity investigators come drive spirits away? Is it all just smoke and mirrors and a money game? Like I mentioned in the opening paragraph, can dozens of groups come through, get all kinds of evidence, and then we show up and. . .crickets chirp?
