Waverly Hills Sanatorium — America's Most Haunted Hospital

Take a drive down Dixie highway in.

Southwest Jefferson County, Louisville, Kentucky. It seems like a normal road with car dealerships, restaurants, shopping centers, and peaceful neighborhoods up and down each side. But if you peek up into the woods and to the top of a hill, you will see glaring back down at you what is known to be one of the most haunted places in the world. Waverly Hills sanatorium opened in 1910 as a medical center for tuberculosis patients. After the expansion in 1926, it could house more than 400 patients.

The Louisville area had one of the largest outbreaks in the country. The Waverly's rooms were always full.

TB was very deadly and extremely contagious. Patients needed to be secluded.

They also believed that fresh air, higher.

Altitudes and plenty of sunshine helped. Everyone exposed had to be quarantined. Even the doctors and staff were not.

Allowed to leave the grounds.

The sanatorium was completely self sufficient, with its own farm land, post office and even its own zip code.

It is believed that nearly 50,000 people died on the property. As a way to hide the amount.

Of deaths from the community. A 600 foot body chute was built to discreetly remove the bodies. As antibiotics were developed to treat TB in the 50s and 60s, there were less and less patients treated here. It closed in 1961 for innovations and reopened as a nursing home from 62 to 81, housing many more sick and elderly patients. The building was abandoned for the next 20 years. During this time, it began hosting many more visitors, some of which were urban explorers, teenagers looking for a place to hang out, and possibly some supernatural visitors. They say places with high energy and emotion are more likely to be haunted. Hospitals, prisons, hotels. Well, Waverly Hills goes above and beyond that qualification. Just being near the abandoned Waverly Hills Sanatorium is enough to send chills up your spine. But when you account for all the tragedy that has occurred here over the years, it makes you wonder if someone or something may still be residing in those empty rooms.

Welcome to the no Such Thing as Ghost podcast. My name is Greg. You just heard Andy in the intro talking about Waverly Hills Sanatorium's history and its paranormal legacy. And we're going to get a little bit more in depth about it. Take it away.

All right, so like I said, it, it sat vacant for about 20 years. In 2001, Charlie and Tina Mattingly purchased the property and they've been doing renovations trying to preserve it. Also building a haunted attraction for the Halloween season. They've established the Waverly Hills Historical Society, which also does overnight tours. And just Historical tours of the property and they've tried to keep some of the trespassers out that I also discussed over the past 20 years. A lot of vagrants, a lot of teens, a lot of just people wandering in, you know.

Yeah. I tried to trespass on that property once before. I was a little late for the party because they already had security going and big fences. So. But for a long time it was kind of like, ah, you can sneak in there pretty easily.

I. Yeah, I think a lot of people around here just kind of wandered up there. Yeah.

Let's put some, let's put our location into context because we didn't do that. We are right down the street from Waverly. We are pretty close.

Oh yeah. I mean you can almost see it.

Yeah.

And we, we've been all around it. Like you said, you've been up to it. We see it all the time.

On a fall day as you're kind of driving down Dixie highway, you can see it through the.

It really does loom over, over the area.

Yeah.

I can only imagine when it was active. It seems to me that it would be even spookier then when it was a place where sick people went and people just went to die.

Yeah.

Like there was a point where, you know, they didn't know how to cure tb. So it was basically, well, come up here and die.

Yeah.

So that, that even makes it more terrifying to me than just a haunted location. It's right. A location where thousands of people went.

It's a real place where real people went. And.

And yeah, it's not just somebody's house. We don't know why it's haunted. Like, yeah, this place has historical significance and pretty recent really. I mean when you think of America, you don't get decades old or centuries old castles or anything. So this is. It's recent history. So kind of a layout of the building. Let's go a little step by step. You know what, what kind of has been seen, what the layout of the actual building is. We're going to talk a little bit about all that. If you go to the first floor, it was basically lobby, offices, maintenance areas. Big deal. The morgue and the body chute, those are the big areas that were around then and are still there. You can still see all these things. There was also some living quarters on the grounds for the doctors and nurses, the other staff that aren't necessarily connected to the building. Kind of a dormitory style living facility for them. Obviously the big spots on the first floor, the morgue, it was kind of A small room, and they had it split into two that you had the side that actually stored the. The dead bodies, and then you had the side for the doctors, you know, and their office space. I guess. You know, a lot of things that happen in this area, there's EVPs. There's kind of a heavy feeling that people get just being in the morgue.

Okay. A heavy feeling.

People describe it as, you know, just a sadness or just a weight on you. Like you can just feel that there's a presence there.

Okay.

A lot of people like to lay in the still existing morgue.

Bit morbid.

Yeah. But that's where a lot of deactivity is felt.

Do you think that heavy feeling. Okay. You know, when you go to a. I mean, I guess this is a bad example if we're talking about ghosts, but, you know, you go to any place of perceived reverence, you go to a cemetery, you kind of get a little bit of that feeling. Right?

Right.

Or if you go to a place in general that has like, any place in general that has deep historical significance, you. I think people are walking into that place understanding that many, many thousands of people died there. There's that. There's that connection. Right. As a human, you're kind of like, well, a lot of death happened here. So in the same way as you get something, you know, I'm sure if you go to the Sistine Chapel, never been there, but you're probably like, whoa. And you get that there's significance here.

I get what you're saying, and I. I kind of understand that, and I kind of think that you have that feeling when you walk on the grounds of this and other places. And I think maybe, you know, our plans are to go out and visit some of these places. I. I think you'll see a difference. I. I think what they're describing is a different feeling. Like, yes, you're coming into a place that, you know, there's been a lot of death or historical relevance, which, Whichever, you know, depending on the location you're going to. But I think there's a different feeling in certain areas of certain buildings that you get that's a little bit different. It's not. And I'm in awe of it or I'm expecting this. It's an actual weight, is how they describe it. Like a weight on you. Like you feel something could happen or is about to happen. I don't know if I'm describing that the right way to get it across.

To you, but I guess it's something.

More than it's different than just your mindset being in awe of something or being respectful.

It's something else. Gotcha.

Yeah.

Okay. It's hard to put into words.

Right, right. And hopefully we can get that feeling.

Yeah, we'll see.

And maybe describe it a little better.

Okay. We'll see.

Of course,.

Right down the hall from the morgue is the body shoot.

The famous body shoot. Everybody. Everybody talks about the body shoot. I've heard about the body chute for 30 years of my life.

This was used as a way to get the deceased out a little bit more discreetly unnoticed.

Right. Because you have a lot of people that are sick. You're worried about the mental well being of other patients.

You're worried about the other patients and the public to.

Yeah. People visiting their family members or I guess, all around the premises. I don't know how much visiting there would be in a tuberculosis hospital.

Probably not.

Probably not a lot.

Yeah. But basically it's a tunnel that was dug. It's all concrete. They used a pulley system and rails to get the bodies to the bottom where a hearse would be waiting.

So a gurney on rails lowered via pulley.

Correct.

Okay.

And usually this was done at night, right?

Yeah.

And the hearse would be waiting there. You know, this. There was a lot of death from this. They didn't know a lot about how to cure it. A lot of what they did was just sunlight, fresh air, eat nutritiously.

Okay. The basics. Basically,.

It took a while before they had a vaccine for it.

Right?

Absolutely. And so there was a lot of guessing going on. That's gonna come back later. We're gonna talk about that again.

Okay.

As we go through the floors.

Interesting. All right. Piqued my interest.

So body chute is obviously a paranormal hotspot.

I mean, if it's got a name like body shoot, people are gonna be all over it. Right?

Yeah.

I mean, if it was. If it was the happy hallway, everybody be like, oh, okay. But if it's a body shoot, like the morgue. It's the morgue.

Like, I mean, who wants to visit the happy hallway? Yeah.

I'm just saying, like, it's going to have significance when something's called the morgue and something's called the body shoot. It was. If it was just like, oh, that's just, you know, that's where they had the refrigerator. That was the break room. Nobody's going to be in the break room.

There's not a haunted Chuck E. Cheese out there. I'm sure there.

I pay. I don't know, but I'm just saying, like, you have to have a specific name for a place. It's go, man.

There's certain places that people that are looking for certain things are going to go, is what you're saying.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's. That's all I have.

Okay, well, you're. You're reading into this very well. Hey.

Yeah.

Good job.

Thank you.

You're all over it. Yeah. I mean, we don't have to do this show anymore.

Oh, really? I've already figured it out.

You got it. Yeah. Mystery solved. Cool. But there's, you know, the weird things that happen there. Voices. People have reported being touched on the shoulder as they're walking through it. Different entities walking through. Mostly shadowy figures, that type of thing. The usual.

The run of the mill stuff. Right.

All the hauntings.

All the things that give me a heavy eye roll as I'm sitting here because they could be so many different things. You know, just the mind playing tricks on them. You're in a dark area. You're in a. In an area. Again, we talked about the heavy feeling thing. Go ahead. I'm gonna repeat myself a lot if I have to keep interjecting with the.

But also voice. Clear voices.

I don't. I.

Okay, okay. In all fairness, could be still your mind playing tricks on you.

It definitely could be. These things are all abstract, though. But I will. Yeah. Please continue.

Okay, so before we get into the other floors, there's an elevator shaft.

Okay.

That has a lot of activity, I'm.

Guessing because they're moving dead people from different floors, actually.

Oh, this is a post hospital scenario.

Oh, so this was built after it was.

No, no, no. The elevator shaft was there.

Okay.

But the spirit, the entity that is seen in relation to the elevator shaft is after it was abandoned. There was reports of a homeless man who had been living there with his dog, and they were found at the bottom of the. Of the elevator shaft.

Okay, what time. Do we have a time frame for when this was?

No, I. I don't know exactly. It would have been in the 80s or 90s.

So we should have some kind of.

So there records, right?

I would assume.

Right.

We don't, though. At least not right now.

No specific record.

Okay. If it was the 80s or 90s, I expect to be able to pull.

There were people that died there. There's been plenty of people that died there, even after it was a hospital.

And there's a newspaper clipping that says.

Apparently he doesn't walk up and go, hey, my name's Joey and my dog Cisco.

Is the dog with him?

The dog is with him.

Oh, okay. So now we're getting all kinds of other. There's ghost dogs.

Yes. They can be seen walking down the hallways near the elevator shaft.

Okay. All right.

So, I mean, a ghost.

Good boy.

Would you not.

I'd pet a ghost dog. Yes, of course you would. I mean, I like to pet dogs anyway, but I'd definitely pet a ghost dog just to be like me.

I mean, he stayed with his master. He's a very good boy.

He's. Yeah. Loyal dog. Yeah.

And apparently it's maybe like a German shepherd. It's. It's a.

Okay.

It's a. It's a big dog.

Big dysplasia. Well, just the dog. I'm sorry.

I don't know. I don't. I don't think that's why the dog. Like, I think they must have died at the same time.

At the same time. Okay.

All right. All right. So then moving along to the other floors, the second to the fifth floors were patient rooms. There's long hallways connecting them. It's obviously a huge building. So you've got long, dark hallways. On the one side, there is a solarium, basically a giant sunroom. Like I said, they thought sunlight and fresh air was the go to cure at first. So it was just a big open room.

A lot of big windows.

Big windows. They would bring the patients out, sit.

Them in there, I'm assuming, like, high ceilings, big window.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Across on the other side of the building from the solariums. Big downer. The terminal rooms. Oh, so you've got the sunroom where they're trying to cure people. The terminal room is for patients that they. Nothing's worked. They're a lost cause, kind of.

Yeah.

They move them there to make beds for newer patients or for patients.

Basically. Like a hospice.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. And it's up and down, second to fifth floor. Everything's the same.

We made some jokes in between there, too. It's like. It's. It's not too. It's. It's. It's not at the expense of the significant loss of human life. No, that definitely should be clear.

No, there's.

We talked about this before. We really started this up. We wouldn't. You know, we were both pretty adamant going, we don't want to make this into a celebration of the loss of human.

And some of these episodes, this one in particular has a lot of death. There's going to be death associated with.

I mean, it Kind of has to be. It goes.

Yeah, yeah. And we're not making light of that.

No, it's terrible.

No, I mean, this. It did happen a significant amount of time ago. We're not an individual or anything, but.

It goes hand in hand with exploring the paranormal.

Right, right.

It just has.

They're going to be sensitive subjects. We're trying to make. Make the episode fun.

Right.

While not making fun of death in general.

All right, now we're done with that disclaimer. Go ahead.

So this, starting on the second floor, this is where a small boy is commonly seen. He's been seen in apparition form running down the hallways, back and forth between rooms. He's been heard laughing. And the biggest attraction, when you go to the second floor, there's a lot of balls laying around, a lot of toys laying around. Also because he's said to interact with them. If you throw a ball down the hallway, he'll move it back to you.

Now we just gave the disclaimer. Now I'm feeling really terrible. Was. Was there happen to be. I mean. Yes. Children contract tuberculosis.

Yes. There were adults.

Children.

I. I don't know that there was a specific children's wing. There were adults and children both.

Yeah.

In this facility.

That makes it 10 times worse. I mean, it just. Well, it just does.

We can't think of it that way. You're right. Story that we're discussing.

Yeah. Okay, so they're leaving. A lot of.

Like, a lot of people will bring toys. Yeah.

For the. For the. For the kid.

For the.

For the active ghost child.

And the most commonly seen is a small boy. And he. He tends to interact with this. He will move the ball.

Okay.

And interact with other toys.

Is it mostly just the ball? Okay. You said other toys.

The boy or the ball? Is the.

The big.

The big thing, the one that we.

They see the most.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so there's stuff littered, apparently, all over the second floor.

Do you know anything else about. Specifically about the boy?

We do not.

Okay.

I mean, as far as I know, he has not told anyone his name. There are, you know, records of plenty of children dying.

I'm sure. I'm sure.

Yeah. Could be one of many.

Okay.

Could be. Maybe it is multiple. Maybe it's not one boy.

Okay. Yeah. All right. I guess so.

I mean, I don't know how. Multiple children.

I don't know how any of that. I mean, I guess so. Yeah. It doesn't have to be one particular entity. Right.

Right.

Okay.

I mean, it's described by everyone as One small boy, but maybe they're all seeing different ones. I don't know.

Okay,.

Moving on to the third floor. This one gets a little bit darker. It's not the small boy running around the hallways.

Okay, now we're looking at friendly.

Now we're looking at shadow figures. And we haven't really gone into shadow figures yet.

No, I don't.

Shadow figure is a blanket term that gets thrown out there. Okay, so you've heard of sleep paralysis.

Yeah.

And shadow figures are associated with that most commonly the hat man.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you know a little bit about that.

I did watch vaguely the haunting of Hill House.

Okay. So sure, there's. That's one variation. A lot of them get lumped together. Anything.

Wait, wait.

Anything that is just shadowy gets called a shadow figure.

So we're saying that sleep paralysis is a haunting?

That's not what I'm saying.

Oh.

What I'm saying is because I was.

Gonna get mad for.

No, no, no, no, no. Blank. There's blanket terms that get thrown out. Shadow figure is associated with sleep paralysis, but then also a ghost or a demon or some entity that appears and is just shadowy is also called a shadow figure. So I want to break it down a little bit. We will obviously get deeper into this in other episodes. The shadow figure that is associated with Waverly is obviously not a sleep paralysis type demon. These are people that are awake walking through the building that see it. It's a creature that doesn't necessarily have a human form.

Okay.

Which qualifies it into the shadow figure description. It's basically just a dark figure.

What does figure mean? Does that mean vaguely human like. Because that's what figure makes think that it is. Which sounds like human to me.

It's just a shape. Basically, it's a shape.

So it could be a dark somewhat human.

It could be.

It could be a dark rectangle, more of a blob. It could be a dark trapezoid.

I don't think it's a trapezoid. I would think it more would be a humanoid figure.

Okay. All right.

I would think.

My confusion is when I'm told it's not a human and then. But it's shaped like a human, which makes me think that it's a human.

These are.

You're.

You're taking my terms. I'm trying to relay this to you.

Okay, all right, all right. I understand.

It is a shape. It is a shape that is probably not a square shape. It is a human shape, mostly probably human shaped figure.

If I see something that is in day to day life. And say, oh, what's that? That's something that's vaguely human shaped. I'm gonna go, that's probably a human. It could be a cactus. You know, posed in the way that.

A human would be. So it more than likely has arms and legs.

Okay, go ahead.

I would guess.

Continue.

You're making me make assumptions on things that I haven't seen.

You know what?

Describing something.

You know what? You're right. I'm sorry.

It's fine. You need to ask these questions.

I'm just. I'm trying to figure out what. Because if something is. What is it called again? It's called a shadow figure.

Shadow figure.

Shadow figure. And if something is.

That's why I gave the disclaimer at first that there are multiple types of shadow figures. Entities.

I see. I see. There's. There could be all kinds of different shapes and sizes of a shadow figure.

It could only be the top half. It could only be legs. It could be. It's just shadowy.

I'm just going to get smoky.

It's gray. It's okay.

I got you. A vaguely humanoid figure without definition.

Yes, that is. And this figure will appear in. Mostly in the hallways, but throughout the entire facility, most commonly on the third floor. That's why I'm associated with.

Mostly contained that area.

That's the most common place that it is seen. It will appear sometimes next to you and then climb up the walls to the ceiling. Likes to do that. That's a thing. That's its thing. It digs it. It loves it.

It's really unexpected.

I mean, that's pretty damn scary.

I get it.

But if someone just appears next to you and it crawls up the wall. I know.

We'll get more in depth into it later, like you said. Why?

Well, a lot of people think that this shadow figure is not touching on what you were just saying. Is not necessarily a human.

Okay.

It may not be someone who died in the facility. It might be maybe an evil entity. If that's the way you want to go. That is maybe living off the fear or living off of the despair that was there.

I mean, so now we're talking about like energy from living things or even energy from dead things.

Possibly people.

I'll say things.

These are all scenarios.

Living people, dead people. Somehow they are now siphoning energy from the fear of possibly. All right.

These are all scenarios.

This is getting a lot more wild than what I ever thought it would be, because this is.

I. I'm glad it is there's some.

Kind of, like, vampire energy. Vampire. Not in the sense of.

Could it be a vampire? Could it be a demon?

I can't believe that.

That is. I'm not necessarily.

Could it be a vampire? I don't know.

I mean, it could just be another ghost of someone who did die there, and maybe they chose to appear a different way. I'm just saying these are scenarios that are thrown out there.

Okay. It's okay. All right. I just Go ahead.

No, no, continue.

I. You're throwing a lot of things at me.

Well, Waverly is a.

It's just a grab bag. Is that what you're going to tell me? It's a grab bag of all kinds of different kinds of hauntings, right?

Yes. Oh, I mean, is this typical for.

A lot of places, though, where it's like, oh, well, we got a little bit of this, we got a little bit of that.

When you get into some of these bigger, more concentrated places, like I kind of touched on in the intro, you know, places with high energy, places with a lot of emotion, places with a.

Lot of death and places with a.

Lot of people visiting and just people coming through.

I mean, high traffic areas.

You've heard of a lot of haunted hotels. There's not necessarily a lot of death there, but there is a lot of energy because there's a lot of people passing through it. I mean, obviously there are details.

I'm assuming that we're going to get into what energy means at some point too. Right? Because I feel like that could be a very interesting discussion.

When I'm saying energy in this instance, as far as, like, energy passing through a place, I just mean, like, there's a lot of. A lot of people, a lot of different people. A lot of emotion.

Gotcha. But I mean, I don't know what energy means.

I don't know what energy means. A lot of things that.

That's what I'm saying. I'm guessing there's going to be more about.

You may have to stop me when I say energy. And go. Which energy are we talking about?

Well, I don't even know what energy you're talking about.

I don't sometimes. I don't know.

I don't know what the different types of energy, the different subcategories of energy are.

There's categories. I don't know what subcategories to everything that I am going to discuss.

I don't know energy means at all. Unless you're talking about, like, electricity, some kind of generated electric. I don't. I Don't I? Some kind of generated energy. I don't know what human energy is. I don't know what that means.

Okay, so you have an aura about you. No. And it's colored different.

Okay, now getting too.

No, but it feels like.

It feels. I mean, direction that that's going, that.

Is kind of similar, I guess. Okay, I was being sarcastic. Let's move on to the fourth floor.

Okay.

Next floor, gonna get a little dark again.

A darker even.

Human.

Dark.

Human. Okay.

Now we're not even talking about shadow people. Spirits, shadow people.

Shadow people.

We're talking about when the hospital was open. So this is a part that we just discussed about, you know, we're not joking about that kind of stuff. This is serious. This is bad. You have this big hospital with patients with a sickness that we don't really know at the time how to cure it. So they're experimenting on things. On the fourth floor, tucked away in the corner, there's a surgical room.

Okay.

And in that surgical room, they would do experimental.

Wait, wait, wait. Like, legitimately.

Legitimately do experimental surgeries.

Like, this is documented information.

Yes, there is a surgical room up there.

Okay.

We know there's been experimental surgeries for everything. Experimental treatments, treatments.

But I mean, we're talking about. We're not even talking about post mortem.

No. One of the things they would do would be closing off the lungs. So you would intentionally collapse the lungs.

Okay.

Because that's where TB lives.

Right.

And it's all the. The diseases in there, the cells in there. So the belief was if you could collapse it, it would rest the lung and it would heal itself. Okay. And there. There was a procedure they did called thoracic plasti. I'm not.

It's something about the thorax.

So they would. They would open up your chest, remove some ribs to be able to mechanically collapse the lung.

Gotcha.

Which didn't really always work.

Well, you have the. The issue of collapsing. It's one lung at a time. Right. Because they're not gonna live.

Yeah. You don't want to collapse both of them. That's. Well, the problem is in doing this, it. It automatically was going to leave them disfigured.

Oh, absolutely. Because you're cracking ribs to get. You're getting past the breastplate to punk. You can. Okay, go ahead.

And even. That's even if you survive the procedure, I mean, you're collapsing a lung.

Right. And you're somebody with damaged lung tissue, and then you're collapsing one lung and leaving them with one already damaged Lung from tuberculosis.

Obviously a lot of people died just doing the procedure.

I mean, I understand that, like, you know, medicine has really gone through a lot of crazy phases, and I'm not in this situation. It. There was a pretty. There was a death sentence associated with tuberculosis. And then you kind of have to. You kind of. You kind of have to try everything you can. I don't fault people for doing that.

No.

When you get into the snake oil and the bleeding.

That seemed like they would work. It's not a magic cure.

You got to try something.

Yeah.

I mean, especially when you have that many people that are.

When your other options are sitting out in the sun and eating.

Right now. Do we. Yeah, exactly. Do you know if this was usually done on, like, your terminal patients?

I would think this would be last.

Last ditch effort. Tried to get some kind of.

I don't think, you know, somebody just checked in and was like, go to the fourth floor.

It sounds.

I don't think that's the way it went.

So us at this point in time, it sounds terrible, but it's not like we're not kind. It's not like the same thing wouldn't happen or the same thing isn't happening because there's always things that you're learning and is. Medical science progresses, you know, then you look back at those prior practices and go, that was barbaric.

Yeah.

But I mean, desperate times call for desperate measures. You've got to try something. It's better than not doing anything.

So it's not. Obviously it's not the worst thing in the world. They were trying to help them.

It's just unfortunate and terrible.

This is the concentrated place on the fourth floor.

Gotcha.

So, yeah, a lot of activity goes on. And that corner, when you get to.

The fourth floor, it seems like the. It seems like the. The story that bothers us the most are the areas that are gonna be the highest in. It seems like the areas that actually have a story.

But.

And I'm sure every bit of this place has a story, but they only.

Make sense, though, even to your skeptic mind. Obviously the places that have the most death, that are the most traumatic, are.

Going to be the most significant.

But I mean, but even. But not even just, you know, in our mind, just, you know, forgetting about whether you believe or don't believe. If something were to happen, if there were ghosts, you know, if you thought you would see a ghost somewhere, where would you go? You would go to a place that had the most trauma and the most death and the most I guess so.

That all goes back to that energy, nebulous energy thing that I don't understand. Yeah.

Right.

Which I guess if that place had a lot of death and trauma, not even death associated with it, but trauma.

Right.

If we're talking about this, my. My fingers are going in there and quoting, but energy, whatever that means, then I. I guess that that would be it.

Right. And I mean, of course, all over the place, there's sightings of doctors, nurses, staff in the. In the kitchen areas. People have seen a man in a white coat and reported to smell the. The sense of fresh baked bread, that type of stuff.

So a man in a white coat,.

Like a chef, probably, or a doctor.

I mean, does. Well, like doctors wear white coats?

Well, but specifically in the kitchen area.

Oh, okay.

I guess other places there's other people with white coats too, and they would be doctors.

Yeah.

I don't know. Maybe the chef is wandering around.

You know, that's an interesting thing to talk about is I wonder how many people that were caregivers.

Yeah.

You know, because they're gonna contract these illnesses.

Yes. I mean, there were plenty of doctors.

And nurses, and they're gonna end up in the same place with the patients they were treating before. It's. Yeah, it's really terrible.

That's why it was segregated anyway. It was its own zip code.

Right. Far away from everything that it could be.

They grew their own food and all that so that they didn't have to interact with anybody else because they already knew they were. Yeah.

All the staff, like you said in your intro, all the staff live. There's like, quarters there for them too. Right. Because you can't have them going out.

They can't leave. And then you're spreading it even more. It was already.

I mean, talk about. Hey, these people were like heroes, man.

Yeah.

Like, they're. They're in the trenches, you know, with these people. And then living there and giving up a lot of their own kind of like, personal freedoms in order to help people.

Yeah. Because, I mean, it's not even like your family could live on the premises because they'd be. They'd be at risk in their lives too.

I mean, that's. That's just impressive.

Yeah.

I'm always impressed with medical personnel. I mean, we just came. I mean, we just went through a big pandemic. I mean, every. Every time that it had, you know, that something goes south, they really step up. That's. That's. That's. I don't know. I like those human stories. I don't like the ghost stories. I like the human stories. Like that's, That's. Those are people that need to be celebrated. We're worried so much about talking. I mean, I'm not saying that we're. That you specifically are saying that's not important. But you know, we spent so much time talking about the, the. Oh, it's so spooky and whatever. And when we're not recognizing that significant part that people have played in the history of the place, like that is so much more impactful.

Right. Well, that's, that's why I kind of wanted to bring that up separate. That's. Yeah, they're all those spirits are spotted all over the place. And obviously they would be if it's doctors and nurses. Those people were given their lives all over this facility and they did it on their own free will. They volunteered to be in this field and volunteered to go live at this facility and take care of these patients that they knew they could get sick from and be in the same situation. So, yeah, like, pretty great. Yep. And now we're gonna take one last dark turn that I already know for the same reasons we're both gonna kind of poo poo on.

Okay.

Because the legends of the fifth floor. The legend of the facility is room 502. That's the biggest, most well known.

Yeah, I've heard of that one.

We'll talk about the significance of the number 502 after I go through the stories and we'll kind of discuss that because we're both gonna roll our eyes at that number. Something's been seen. Whether it's 502, that's a whole other thing. But a lot of the sightings on the fifth floor is of a certain nurse. There were nurses rooms up on the fifth floor. There was a nurse's station, obviously more patient rooms. There's an open area up on the top floor that's probably a lot like the solariums on the lower floors. But in particular, room 502 has been associated with this nurse. Maybe a couple of different nurses. There are two stories that are associated with this legend. Apparently in 1928, an unmarried pregnant nurse was found to have hung herself in this room. Obviously from, you know, different time. The stress of all that is the story. And then the Second one, in 1932, another nurse supposedly jumped from the roof from the fifth floor. And some people think that's her that wanders the fifth floor now.

Now you gave me very specific dates.

I did.

Is there documentation?

These are dates that Are associated with the legends. And I say the word legend over and over because we have no proof. There is no record that either one of these actually occurred. Obviously, there were plenty of deaths. Very well could have been suicides.

Yeah.

I'm sure there's a lot of pressure involved in dealing with these patients and dealing with this type of work. And they seem like ordinary stories, but also maybe a little bit extraordinary. So I can't say for sure that either one of them is true. Nobody in their research has been able to find it. There have been people that worked there.

That corroborated it from 1932.

That's the other problem is the people that would have cooperated Would have been very young at that time. How would they have known?

Right. That's the stuff that always makes me suspicious when somebody tries to really nail down something so specific. We are. We. We, you know, wave. The sanatorium's there. Waverly's there. We know the history of the building.

Right.

So the feasibility of paranormal activity from these. This. This actual documented history about this terrible disease. Right. Versus these individual stories that have no documentation and no place in history. But yet were. But yet a date is so cavalier. Cavalierly thrown out. Like, you know what I mean? A date is so specifically thrown out that it's like 1928, 1932. That's. It's so specific that it makes me suspicious.

And this is something.

And there's no documentation.

So I already know you're gonna chop holes in this On a lot of stories, and I'm not disagreeing with you by doing that, because it's. It's going to happen. There's going to be something that is seen or heard or, you know, a partial story that is uncovered, and people are going to elaborate on that. And that's how urban legends are born. You know, whether it's the hooked man tail or the person in the backseat, there's always probably a bit of truth to it. It happened somewhere. It happened a certain way. And then somebody makes up the rest of the story and fills in the blanks. And I think this is probably one of those things. Somebody supposedly saw the nurse. Multiple people have seen a nurse and.

Then created a backstory and then created a story.

And that's where the 502, I think, comes in. As we know, and some of you might know, Louisville's area code is 502.

Yep. Pretty easy.

So all over Waverly, 502 has been tagged.

Yeah. Gonna tag the area code everywhere. People love area codes.

Yeah. And so I think that's where some of this comes from.

Now, it is actually specifically is room 502.

There is a room 502. And there has been tagging in that room.

Obviously, it's 502, because 502 and the significance for the area.

And so I think a little bit of that just tied into it. And then the lore.

The lore from there was kind of fabricated to fit within that significant space because a lot of people went, oh, 502. I live in Louisville. Went there. I tagged a bunch of stuff. I got drunk with friends.

And then somehow that made it into the nurse story, and so it became room 502. I'm not doubting that people have seen the nurse on the fifth floor. Okay. You know, I'm not discrediting any of that. If people said they saw it, they saw it. If, you know, if we uncover evidence that's what it is. I will discredit a lot of the backstory to this one, though, just by based on, you know, the urban legend, thoughts of it and the 502 being significant in other ways. So, you know, whether that's the actual spot that someone died. Who knows? I mean, there was death all up and down this building. So, you know, maybe someday this nurse will speak up and tell us what really happened.

You never know.

Or somebody will find a record of it. We don't know.

The record of it would be the most significant thing.

You don't think if she just stood in front of you and said, yeah, I killed myself right there. You're standing on the spot.

Yeah.

You don't think that would work for you?

I don't think I have to worry about that happening.

But you don't think that would work for you?

I don't have to worry about that happening. But if it did, hypothetically, if somebody's ghost told me that that's where it happened, then I guess I would have to be like, well, it's fact. But I'm in this day and age. I'm gonna have cell phone camera, or I'm gonna have 4K footage of her telling me what happened.

Well, are you? Yeah.

Nobody else seems to.

So I think especially you would be terrified if a ghost just appeared in front of you, and you would go, I don't know what to do.

No, no, that's. No.

I think it would be more shocking to you because you don't believe.

I don't think so.

Especially if she started telling you her life story and, like, you had to sit down and listen for a while and, you know, find out what her pain was. I think you'd be forgetful of your phone. Just saying. I think so. All right, so that's, you know, a lot of the history and the paranormal associated with Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Anything else you would like to add on the wrap up?

Well, yeah, hopefully we're gonna get out there soon, right. When it comes to these kind of episodes, they're gonna be more likely gonna be multi part, you know, and we're gonna go on locations and gather information that's part of the show. We'll just have to revisit it right now. We're just. It's just kind of Andy filling me in and teaching me the things of the paranormal. So that's what we're doing. But that about wraps up the episode. Here's some social information for us. Find us on Facebook, no such thing as ghost Instagram, no such thing as ghost pod. And you can shoot us an email, tell us what you think, tell us if you want us to talk about a certain subject maybe that we don't know about or maybe we haven't thought about. And. And that's at no such thing as ghostpodmail.com.

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