Stories of Waverly Hills Sanatorium
During the 1800s and early 1900s, America was swept by a disease called Tuberculosis. Louisville, Kentucky had the highest death rates of Tuberculosis in America. In 1910, a hospital was built, specializing in Tuberculosis treatment. This was the start of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium.
The Sanatorium was opened in 1926. It was considered the best treatment center for Tuberculosis at that time. What they don’t know about the hospital, however, is that the “treatments” were actually horrifying experiments done on the patients. There were normal treatments like eating healthy and breathing in fresh air. But other ones weren’t as nice and were far more cruel. For example, balloons would be physically implanted inside the patient’s lungs and filled with air to expand. Very few patients survived. A whole lot of them didn’t.
Thousands died in the hospital. In fact, so many patients died that the hospital had to create a tunnel to move all the dead bodies. The tunnel was created so that the patients in the hospital wouldn’t lose faith in the treatment. The bodies of those who died were transferred from the hospital through the tunnel to the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill. Many patients never came out.
In 1982, the government shut down the Sanatorium for good. However, stories of ghosts roaming the hospital halls were greatly popular at that time. The most famous one was about Room 502.
Room 502 was a nurse station. Tales have been told that a nurse once hung herself in this very room. The nurse had been unmarried and pregnant, and the father would not recognize the child. In great misery, the nurse hung herself and the child inside her died as well. Another nurse supposedly tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists. She was found running out in the hall screaming and bleeding.
There was also this boy called Timmy who was around six or seven years old. He loved to play ball. Timmy may or may not have died from tuberculosis and became a ghost that haunted the hospital after his death. There were people who saw a ball rolling by itself in the hallway and people think that would be Timmy.
Those are some of the stories of Waverly Hills Sanatorium.
Are you scared now?
