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Waverly hills sanatorium
- mysterious world
- May 2, 2022
- 3 min read
Waverly hills sanatorium is probably one of the most haunted buildings in the United States. It is also the most well known place among the paranormal investigators and all of them have either visited the place atleast once in their lifetime or have planned to visit there. But what makes the waverly hills sanatorium so haunted that even a person living continents away can recognise the name because of the stories and hauntings that they have heard.
Waverly hills sanatorium is a closed sanatorium located in Louisville/jefferson County, Kentucky. It was first opened to accomodate the tuberculosis patients as Kentucky was badly ravaged by the disease also known as the white plague.
In 1900s Kentucky had the highest tuberculosis death rate in America. This hospital was constructed to combat the deadly disease but due to the absence of a vaccine a lot of patients died here and the role of the hospital was only reduced to an isolation centre. Once a person would walk inside the grounds of the sanatorium, they would likely become it’s residents with almost zero chance of going outside again. It was like a small enclosed community growing its own food and everything with little to no contact with the outside world.
Even the treatments were not very pleasant. In one of the treatment practises patients lungs were exposed to ultraviolet light to stop the bacteria. Other treatments included the removal of several ribs from the chest wall to collapse a lung. Sometimes a part of the lung had to be removed from the patient’s body.
It is no secret that these medical practises were upto no good and a lot of patients died during the treatment itself.
Other treatments were less pleasant and much bloodier. Most patients who came with the disease did not survive. It has been estimated that a minimum of 6000 patients died here. Although the real number of deaths might be a lot higher as the mortality rate of the patients was really high. The staff did not want the patients to witness the dead bodies as it would lower their morale so a special body chute was built which was a tunnel like slide and the bodies were moved from there at night and it would lead to the back of the sanatorium.
The hospital was eventually closed off in 1961 due to antibiotic drug streptomycin that lowered the need for such hospital.
By 2001 after a long terrifying history of torture, ridicule and deaths it became the local haunted house.
Visitors reorted of slamming doors, lights in the windows as if power was still running, sound of footsteps . Teenagers and paranormal investigators often visit the building and multiple people have witnessed shadows moving from the corner of their eyes. People have ran off scared from the now dilapidated hospital and several investigators have claimed to be getting nightmares even after visiting the abandoned building only once.
Sightings of a little girl seen running up and down the third floor solarium, the little boy, the hearse that appeared in the back of the building dropping coffins.
The fifth floor of the building is considered to be the most haunted floor.
There was a room 502 on the fifth floor. The room felt like sadness. The head nurse of this room was found hanging from the light fixture. Another nurse jumped off the roof to her death. People sometimes witness moans and cries in this room.
The whole place is haunted by a grim presence called the creeper who apparently crawls along the floors and walls of waverly hills sanatorium. Some believe it’s an otherworldly spirit or demon, while others believe it’s a human spirit twisted by the trauma of death.
The tour guides and visitors have also claimed to have seen their dopplegangers or an entity mimicking them while inside the building.
Even if you don’t come across anything or these experience turn out to be just stories, the daunting structure of the building and it’s traumatizing past is enough to give you creeps.
Waverly hills now hosts paranormal investigators and visitors who wish to take a tour inside the sanatorium and know much more about the place.
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