When Two Guys Slept In An Abandoned Hospital, Their Investigation Took A Haunting Turn

Waverly Hills Sanatorium’s reputation as a haunted hotspot got the better of your curiosity. Now, standing in the courtyard of its crumbling remains, you’re beginning to regret the decision to explore its empty halls. The countless deaths that occurred here deepens the heavy atmosphere hanging over the hospital’s husk. And then you hear a noise, echoing from inside...

Tragic history

Imagining this situation is scary enough! Now put yourself in the shoes of the two urban explorers who actually found themselves there. Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara from BuzzFeed Unsolved have become two of the most popular ghost hunters on the internet. The Buzzfeed Unsolved Network YouTube channel has almost 6 million subscribers, many of whom tuned in for the duo's exploration of the sanatorium.

Goofy yet spooky

Known for their goofy-yet-spooky brand of ghost hunting, Ryan is the believer and Shane the skeptic. The idea of spending an entire night in a supposedly-haunted location is already nerve-wracking, but the fact that they would do so inside Waverly Hills Sanitarium is downright bone-chilling. The reason why goes back to the location's macabre history.

Haunting phenomena

And it wasn’t just Waverly Hills’ fascinating background that hooked Ryan and Shane’s attention. The rumors of haunting phenomena to terrified visitors also enticed them. In our time, the sanatorium is a ruined hulk of its former self, but in its heyday, the facility was a bustling, self-sufficient hospital capable of housing hundreds.

Contagious disease

You see, Waverly Hills Sanatorium was once considered a bastion against one of the deadliest diseases at the time. However, as the plague spread and the sanatorium's population increased, the hospital filled with patients until it was fit to burst. So how did a full facility go from splitting at the seams to an abandoned ruin?

Harrowing halls

That’s one of the topics skeptical Scully-type figure Shane and believer Muldur-type Ryan covered during their investigation. Over the course of its grim history, Waverly Hills has attracted many visitors to its harrowing halls. And with these incredible photos of the hospital, you can feel like you’re one of them. Don’t worry, we’ll hold your hand.

School for girls

The origin of the hospital dates back to the turn of the century, but the grounds housed buildings even earlier than that. You see, one Major Thomas H. Hays bought the land in 1883 to build a school for his little girls. It was the resident teacher, Lizzie Lee Hawkins, who gave Waverly Hills its name.

Sweeping disease

Lizzie was passionate about Sir Walter Scott’s work, his Waverley Novels series in particular. But the land didn’t remain a site of education. In 1908, a deadly disease swept through Kentucky that required more hospitals than schools. We’re talking about tuberculosis.

Great white plague

In 2016, the American Lung Association described tuberculosis as “the most feared disease in the world, the disease was known as the ‘Great White Plague’ due to the extreme paleness of those affected, striking down the young and old, the rich and poor. It seemed no one was safe from tuberculosis.”

Maximum capacity

They’re right. It required an organization called The Board of Tuberculosis to confront the situation. They also snapped up the school’s grounds to construct Waverly Hills Sanitorium. It opened in 1910, and though it was originally built for just 130 people, the hospital was full from the get-go. Its capacity increased to 580 in 1926 so that it could cope with the demand.

Self-sufficient

So how did it combat tuberculosis? Urban explorer Ryan explained, “Interestingly enough, due to the fact that tuberculosis is highly contagious, Waverly Hills was largely self-sufficient. They grew their own food, raised animals ...etc. Once you went to Waverly Hills, whether you were a patient, nurse, or doctor, you were no longer part of the outside world.”

Experimental procedures

Experts of the time considered this combination of isolation, fresh country air, and high spirits to be key ingredients for recovery. Waverly Hills also practiced experimental procedures on desperate patients in an attempt to stop the spread of tuberculosis. That doesn’t sound like the best atmosphere to keep occupants in high spirits, does it?

Haunted halls

And speaking of spirits, the sanatorium’s tortured souls are still thought to haunt its halls. Countless people lost their lives at Waverly Hills — an estimated one patient each day — but the death toll escalated quickly. This was no doubt fueled by the hospital’s “family visiting day,” which probably just contributed to the spread of tuberculosis.

The Body Chute

Visits were most likely supposed to improve patients’ moods, but doctors didn’t yet realize that tuberculosis was an airborne threat. And as mortality rates increased, Waverly Hills Sanitorium faced another obstacle to morale. The sheer amount of deceased patients would surely horrify its living ones, so Waverly Hills installed something called “The Body Chute.”

Body transportation

It’s exactly as dark as it sounds. The Body Chute was a tunnel at the hospital’s rear that linked to a railroad. Staff used it to transport bodies so they could be taken by train in the dead of night. It wasn’t just tuberculosis and botched experiments that claimed the lives of patients, though.

Accident waiting to happen

Several “accidents” occurred at Waverly Hills Sanitorium over the years. For example, there was the case of Timmy, a small boy with a love of toy balls. When the hospital was operational, kids would play on the roof. If this sounds like an accident waiting to happen, that's because it is: one day, Timmy tragically fell to his death.

Hospital inquest

At least, that’s the story. The hospital performed an inquest to see if it was truly an accident or something more sinister, but officials didn’t find any evidence of foul play. Nevertheless, that wasn't the last time Timmy was seen at the sanatorium. Modern visitors to Waverly Hills claim his spirit still haunts its halls.

Taboo

The sanatorium’s head nurse, Mary Hillenburg, is an apparition sometimes seen in room 502. She fell pregnant without a husband — quite a taboo in those days — and as the story goes, the situation was too stressful for her to bear. She seemed to take her own life, though some theorize that she actually died in a different way.

The truth about Mary

Rumors abound that the baby’s father was also a doctor at the hospital. Some people believe that this doctor made it look as if Mary had taken her own life when an illegal procedure accidentally resulted in her death. We may never know the truth...unless someone is brave enough to ask Mary herself what really happened.

Room 502

Strangely, that’s not the only death associated with room 502. Four years later, another nurse seemingly leapt off the nearby roof. Again, though, some people believe the circumstances were suspicious. And as you’d expect for a building with such a long history, they weren’t the last fatalities in Waverly Hills Sanitorium’s halls.

Restless spirits

The third floor supposedly hosts the restless spirit of a homeless man who used to take shelter in the empty building. The official story is that both the man and his dog fell down a third-floor elevator shaft to their death. Once again, however, rumors abound that he was actually pushed.

Vanished without a trace

Tina Mattingly, who currently co-owns the Waverly Hills building, claims to have seen his wandering soul. She described the ghost as “a very tall man” with long hair in the company of a dog that vanished without a trace. Others have reported similar encounters, which is just the kind of thing Ryan and Shane were after.

Electroshock therapy

“Electroshock therapy is on the first floor of what we call the morgue wing,” Tina told the duo before they entered. “And electroshock is what they performed on the patients that got tuberculosis of the brain. Probably didn’t help them I’m sure, but they didn’t know what else to do.”

Limited reprieve

The urban explorers first stopped at an old waiting room, long since abandoned. There was no interior lighting and the guys’ flashlights — aided by Shane’s quips — only offered a limited reprieve from the spooky atmosphere. Nevertheless, the thick dust coating the furniture indicated that it had been a while since visitors stayed for any length of time.

Nightmare

Speaking of short stays, the pair headed to the rear of the Sanatorium for the 500-foot long tunnel infamously known as The Body Chute. “Oh my god, this is awful,” Ryan exclaimed as he pushed through the metal mesh gate. And even the usually-stoic Shane agreed, saying, “Now, this is the nightmare.”

Descending into oblivion

Ryan’s cries of “oh no, no, no” echoed after the guys as they walked down the concrete chute. “Are we going to hell?” Ryan asked as he saw how far the tunnel descended into the ground. Judging from the footage, the chute certainly seemed to be a never-ending descent to the underworld.

Strange encounter

And that’s when the duo’s first strange encounter happened. The explorers heard a strange rustling and a whirring noise emanating from behind a plastic sheet covering the tunnel. The sound left Ryan visibly shaken, and he quickly retreated. Shane couldn't clearly identify the cause either, so he volunteered to investigate.

Closest thing to hell

He didn't go all the way to the tunnel’s end, though. The explorers stopped when they heard a horrible shrieking noise that sent everyone — including the person recording it all — running from The Body Chute. The experience already left Ryan, who called the chute to “the closest thing to hell,” chilled to the bone.

High depth activity

The explorers were nevertheless determined to investigate the morgue. “For obvious reasons,” Ryan narrated, “the morgue on the first floor is reportedly an area of high depth activity.” It certainly looked the part with its rusting metal autopsy tables and cold stone walls. Aside from feeling cold, though, they encountered nothing. If anything watched them, it did so silently.

Screaming

On the third floor, Shane and Ryan found the elevator shaft attributed to the homeless man’s death. And with Shane’s encouragement, Ryan shoved his hand inside. After mere seconds, he withdrew it, screaming, wearing a look of stunned shock on his face! When he calmed down, Ryan revealed that he felt something on the other side.

A terrifying encounter

The baffled explorer explained how he felt a sensation, like someone blowing air onto his hand. Shane credited the wind for the feeling, yet Ryan didn't feel anything the second time he puts his hand through the door. Scary stuff, but Ryan’s most terrifying encounter was just a flight of stairs away on the fourth floor.

There was something strange

The toy-loving little boy, Timmy, is among one of the apparitions said to haunt Waverly Hills’ floor four. And Ryan was prepared with a bouncy ball to see if he could coax a reaction from the departed. With that in mind, he bounced the ball down the pitch-black corridor, waiting for Timmy to respond. That's when Shane noticed something strange.

Trepidation

Despite being a skeptic, Shane exclaimed, “I think [the ball] bounced a few extra times, though...It sounded like it stopped and then it bounced a little more.” So with some trepidation, the pair went into the shadows after the ball. What Ryan found probably stayed with him long after the investigation was over.

Babbling

When the guys pointed their flashlights down the hallway where the ball stopped, Ryan gasped. “No way! Oh no!” One of the names graffitied on the drywall happened to be his own...and the ball had stopped right underneath it. He completely lost it, and babbled, “Oh no! How is that possible? Oh no!” Of course, Shane found this new incident hilarious.

Creepy campout

The pair’s last stop was the intimidating room 502, the place where they planned on staying the night. Earlier in the night, Tina had told them, “I’ve had guys, people, for security reasons, stay up on the fifth floor in tents...and they had things hit their tents all night long, and hear[d] kids giggling and stuff.”

A sad history

As terrified as Ryan was at the beginning of the night, nothing compared to the moment when he first saw where he'd be sleeping. "If we were to sleep in this area," he said, gesturing towards room 502, "We would be sleeping right where it happened." "It" being, of course, where Mary was found dead back in the '20s.

A sleepless night

Even Tina, the co-owner of the building who knows it inside out, admitted that a night spent alone in room 502 wasn't something she'd ever consider doing herself. "I've been here almost 16 years and I've never done it," she told Ryan and Shane. The guys were in for a sleepless night...

Whispering

Fortunately for Ryan’s heart, the night went off with only a minor disturbance when he thought he heard whispering. We imagine that both Ryan and Shane were happy to leave Waverly Hills Sanatorium by the light of day. So did their tour of the crumbling hospital change anything? Did it convince them the building is haunted?

Life after death

Ryan asked the same question at the end of his tour. “No,” Shane bluntly replied, but Ryan wasn't so sure. “I think it is,” he argued. Regardless of whether they believe in ghosts or not, though, many of the video's viewers agreed that there is something terrifying about Waverly Hills.

Horriffic

The Body Chute left watchers, skeptics or otherwise, haunted. Some offered, “I don’t care whether you believe in ghosts or not — that 'body chute' is absolutely terrifyingly horrific.” Other viewers no doubt felt curiosity about the old sanatorium themselves. Can just anybody take a stroll through the eerily-silent rooms?

Nightmare fuel

Although the property’s privately owned, Tina, along with her co-owner Charles, offer tours around the sanatorium at certain times of the year. They also provide some frightening festivities around Halloween if you’re in the market for some nightmare fuel. The owners have even bigger plans for the property.

Serious disrepair

The Mattingly couple bought the property in 2001. Although it had fallen into serious disrepair, they’ve been working together with The Historical Society to restore it ever since. Funding comes from charity events held all year round. As for now, though, their priority is preventing the building from falling deeper into disrepair...

Tribute

In addition to raising enough money to replace the roof and windows, the Mattingly family have also installed a sprinkler system in case of fires. For now, though, they’re happy to keep the sanatorium as a testament to its history, however dark. It’s a sort of tribute to all the people who lost their lives there, and the ones who might still walk its grounds.