Everything else goes here, including discussion of parks outside of Carowinds and any off-topic discussion
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By coasterdave
#39403
So while alot of you folks where heading to Carowinds for the Construction Tour on the 13th of March, I had thought about going but I had already made plans to ghost hunt at the place that is billed as the most haunted place in the US, The Waverly Hills Sanatorium located in Louisville, Kentucky. I know some of you have saw this place on varies Paranormal Shows such as Ghost Hunters when they did a Halloween Live Telecast afew years back. It is known to be the holy grail to Paranormal Investigators. It is a place that I intend to revisit atleast once more this year.

Before I go any farther I want to state now that I do not believe in ghosts for I have never saw one face to face. I am the type of person that is onto the seeing is believing. When I come face to face with one then I will change my mind but will say that some pretty interesting things took place this night that made me say, "Wow that was pretty cool."

Those that do not know what Waverly Hills is it was a tuberculosis hospital that served the area. Although it was considered the best site for treating the disease at the time, but some of the procedures were primitive and grisly. The doctors could not treat the disease so they tried their best by removing organs and trying to find a cure in barbaric ways. Tuberculosis ravaged the body along with your mind and has caused some patients to go insane while slowly and painfully dieing.

Like other TB sanatoriums it was situated on a hill because it was thought that elevation had drier, purer air and it was thought beneficial to sufferers. Sunlight and fresh air were also provided by exposing patients’ rooms along the outer walls to mother nature. Please remember that the people that came to this hospital early in its operation left through the Body Chute or Death Tunnel. They came here hoping for a cure so they could go home and live the rest of their lives but the early years of operation it was just a place to come to die tile a cure was found. During the height of the TB outbreak there was an average death of one every other day. And why is it I want to pay to stay eight hours in this place?

So check in was at 11:45 on the 13th and things got started off abit after midnight with a walk down and up the 500 feet tunnel known as the Body Chute for everyone that died here was removed from the hospital by this tunnel. The bodies where either claimed by the family of where sent to the University of Louisville as cadavers. The bodies where then return back to Waverly to be buried in a one of the graveyards or buried in the largest mass grave that Lucy guards over today. Now pics:

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Lets began the descent of the Body Chute shall we? A round trip down and back along the stairs and not the ramp.


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Be careful of your step and watch out for objects still hanging from tunnel.


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Everyone that died here was lowered down the ramp you see in this picture hence the name Body Chute.


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Here is the area that leads into the hospital as I am told.


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Just to show you just how dark the area around Hospital is and Cindy is out there waiting!


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Here is the first floor where the Morgue is located! We will get to that soon enough.


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Welcome to the Morgue and lets rest abit in here shall we?


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This is the inside of what a Cadaver Drawer is like. All of us while end up in one of these at one time but why would you want to lay in one alive? I spent 30 minutes here and nothing happened to me.


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Parts of the first floor is used as a Haunted House in October.


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This is where patients where rolled out 10 hours each day in sun, rain, snow, heat, and cold. Fresh air was thought to cure TB but I am sure this help spread it to the doctors and nurses that worked there. ALot of the workers became patients over time.


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These are rooms where shared by two people. Please note that even when the place was running there was no glass in the windows to help fresh air flowing in. Bet it was really cold in the winter.


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Each floor had places that visitors come visit patients and here is one of them. You vist here and you might end up in one of thier rooms to share it with someone.


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This is the room that a person was put into when there was nothing else that could be done to help them. This is the room in which you where put to wait to die in. It did have a door that would be closed and a window. It reminded me of a prison cell or maybe in this case it was Death Row. You end up in here then it was a one way ticket to the Morgue. Each double room had one of these rooms located across the hall.


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This would be your view if you where in a bed on one of the rooms.


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One of the death rooms seem to absorb the flash of my camera. It was noticeable colder upon entering this room along with a feeling of dread.


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Nikki is someone who's name is everywhere in the building. She must have really got around or something.


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This at one time was a doctor's office at one time.


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Welcome to the Operating Room or the room that most of the deaths took place in. This is where you might have a liver removed or maybe a lung to help stop the TB from ravishing your body. Alot of the folks did not survive the operations that took place in here.


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Atleast they did have something to sterilize the instruments, if they used it that is.


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This is right outside the operating room on the fourth floor.


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This is a part of the fourth floor that was pretty active the night I was there. I was asked to walk down the hall and stop. I was told that there was a shadow that seem to lurk behind me and even blocked me from the groups view. Was cool but I did not see it and noone was smart enough to take a pic of it.


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This is the fifth floor of Waverly. This is an area that people have heard kids playing. Sorry I heard nothing.


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This was a tower on the top floor and had no idea how to get there since our guide said enjoy the place and went to smoke.


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This is Room 502. this is a room where two nurses killed themselves. One hung herself for some unknown reason and the second nurse took a leap off the top of the building. It is known to be active but only hung out there for afew minutes.


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Nothing really left of the room. Just a shell with the johnny flusher.


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There are balls all over the hospital. People bring these so they can play with Timmy. Just call his name and speak with him for afew minutes. Roll the ball and wait afew minutes for the ball might roll back to you. It did take place twice and I could not find a way to debunk it.


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Shot on the way out of building and the darkness seems to be eating the flash.


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Behind this door a homeless man was killed along with his dog. Some have caught a dog barking on EVPs and I caught one barking in this area. There was no dog around that night.


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Just think that this was your view if you where in the hospital for TB. This was the only sight that you saw till they found a cure, you where operated on, or you where pulled back to the death rooms to die in the darkness all alone.


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This was the Electroshock room used to try to cure TB. Imagine coughing up blood each time the switch was flipped.


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This greats people that come to tour the place.


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Center of building


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Overview as I was leaving of building.

I am still going through my EVPs but have four that rang from a laugh to a dog barking. I still have more to go through and hope to be finished by the weekend and will post them in this thread if you folks want to hear them. I plan to return here in oct to enjoy the place in a more controlled environment with a smaller group. Maybe I can get grabbed again like I did during my stay.

Rest of Pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coasterdave/sets/72157623621781842/

Next stop will be the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Westin, WV on April 10th.
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By CarolinaCoasterFreak
#39404
That is super cool! And creepy. Got me interested, and I went to the site. They have 15 paranormal pictures, and these three stood out most to me.

Silhouette of a man:
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This one is supposed to be shadow legs:
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And... the creepiest one (and the most likely to be photoshopped...):
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By PhantomCat
#39417
You are really a brave and adventurous soul to go to those places and stay over night. I found this thread very interesting and creepy at the same time, being that I lived in a haunted house for many years. Catch my post about it under "Aliens."

I had no idea they still allowed people inside Waverly.
Back in my high school days I took a trip with my drama instructor and a few other students so we could audition for The North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem, NC. On the way back to Charlotte our instructor pointed out old rundown buildings that were sanatoriums and quarantined homes for different diseases from earlier times.

Modern medicine sure has come a long way. I didn't pass my acting audition to enter the school of performing arts, but I did get into The Art Institute for graphic design. There, for English, I had to research and give a report on Tuberculosis (TB) and found that one had to constantly be exposed to TB by spending much time around a person with it in order for the microscopic spores they cough or sneeze out to take affect. The germ can settle in any organ but it loves the lungs. It sits in a healthy person's body, detained by antibodies inside a thin membrane, waiting...waiting for its host to age become ill. Then, it brakes forth and attacks the chosen organs.

Four different vaccines were finally developed to cure TB and they are inner changeable meaning, they can be used alone or in different combinations: #1 with #4; #2 with #3 and so forth. The problem they discovered, people who'd thought they were completely healed and came off the medicine to early allowed TB to regrow inside them again, this time morphing into another strand with total immunity to the vaccine they were taking. Doctor's then had to analyze the new strand and prescribe a different vaccine combination to kill the relentless germ.

From that same class I had to also research and give a report on a poet (Sir Walter Raleigh), whom I discovered, crossed paths with King James - the same king who's name appears on the Holy Bible. Come to find out, all King James did was give his approval to a committee of men who came asking if they could translate the ancient scripture writings into English. The king's name is on The Book, but he did no work on it.

That's all for PhantomCat's school of history and modern medicine, it's time for my movie...