Haunted Hospitals (2018) s01e03 Episode Script

- I volunteered because I like to help sick people.
- I went from, "Maybe this is someone playing a joke on me," to "This is actually a paranormal experience".
(screaming) - I was absolutely terrified.
No, no, no, no! - I'd never been so close to something so evil.
Don't come near me! - I'm terrified every day to go to work.
Hurry! Hurry! (frightened yelp) - They weren't from this side.
(evil growling) (musical theme) (sirens blaring) - (narrator): Recently graduated, 23 year old Jessica Brooks has already landed her dream job.
- In 2013, I was working at a hospital pharmacy.
I'm a certified pharmacy technician.
- It's challenging work that carries a lot of responsibility, and Jessica enjoys everything about it.
- I started working at the facility because you get to be there for the hard events like deaths and loss, but you're also there for these great moments in people's lives.
You know, someone had a successful lung transplant, you get to be a part of that.
- There is only one downside to the job and it's where the hospital pharmacy is located.
- So the basement at a hospital, that's typically where you have the morgue, where you have your labs and your pharmacy.
You always hear stories about working in a creepy hospital basement.
I absolutely had no idea that this was going to happen to me.
The pharmacy is a very secure area of the hospital.
So you go up to the door and you have to badge in.
But on top of that, there's a security measure of a biometric thumbprint that is taken.
There is a two-step process to getting into the pharmacy.
So one night, I go into the sterile preparation room.
I get all suited up just to ensure that no contaminants are getting into the IV that you're making.
I just noticed that there was a tension in the air.
And all of a sudden, I hear a click.
(clicking) The door just flew open on me.
And I had a syringe in my hand and just turned, and there was nothing there.
Keep in mind, this is a door that has a secure biometric lock on it, that nobody can just turn the handle and open.
(scared breathing) I looked down both hallways and there's nobody there.
There's no one that's walking away, there's no one hiding in the distance.
The hallway is bare.
Immediately I'm thinking, "Okay, maybe this is someone playing a joke on me.
" - But two nights later, Jessica realizes what's happening is far from a joke.
- Part of my job all night is to restock the things that we are low on.
This particular night, I had to go to the preparation room to get more bags to take back to the IV room.
The more you walk down the hallway towards the morgue, you start to get that tingly feeling in your spine, the hair on the back of your neck standing up, the "Maybe I shouldn't walk this way.
Maybe I should go a different route through the hospital.
" - The creepy feeling by the morgue is replaced by something even more unsettling.
(child crying) - What I heard sounded like a child.
Which is very weird to me, because not only are children not allowed in the basement pharmacy, but civilians aren't allowed in the basement pharmacy.
(crying continues) - When people pass away in hospitals, a lot of times it's a very sudden thing.
Souls can, I believe, get trapped there because they don't know they've actually passed away.
(creepy child voice) - (Jessica): I could not find the child.
I circled the corridors and I could not find anyone there.
- Jessica hopes to find a rational explanation for the sound she just heard.
- I phoned up to security to see if maybe someone had reported a missing child.
Nothing.
It completely freaked me out.
- She decides to take her investigation one step further.
- So, on the third shift, there's very few people that are around the hospital at that time of night, so you get very close to the ones that you see very frequently.
- She enlists the help of a trusted coworker, a security guard with access to hospital surveillance footage.
- Coffee time already? - Got anything stronger? (chuckling) I had a very good relationship with our security guard.
- But the favour she asks him leads nowhere.
- Look, I checked the surveillance tapes.
No one's been in the basement besides you.
Here.
- Thanks, friend.
At this point, I just went from, "Okay, maybe this is someone playing a joke on me," to "Maybe this is actually a paranormal experience.
" - For weeks, the third shift is routine.
But that's about to change.
- (Jessica): That night had been extremely tense.
I am walking down the main corridor to get to the service elevator and I hear footsteps.
(running footsteps) It was very unusual to hear footsteps at that time of night and of course, it startled me.
(scared breathing) It's a very barren and scary place at night.
- Only Jessica and the Pharmacist are authorized to be in this part of the basement.
(distant screaming) (thumping) (screeching) - I was absolutely terrified.
That fight or flight response was there, and I just needed to get away.
(screaming) As I'm turning my head, out of the corner of my eye, there's this Grey shadow that just whizzed around the corridor.
In that moment, I almost lost my ----.
(screaming) - The shadowy figure continues its hunt.
(elevator dings) - Come on! And that's when I saw what had been following me.
(frightened whimpering) I'm now like, "I just want to get the fuck out of here.
" Pharmacy Technician Jessica Brooks is being stalked by something not of this world.
(screaming) (screeching) - Why does a spirit manifest as a shadow figure? It can be for a couple of reasons.
Number one, they don't have the energy to show themselves as a full bodied person.
In other cases, it is believed that they've never been human, so they can't fully appear as something human.
- (interviewer): How did you feel about that? - I was terrified.
I was terrified.
With as many events that were occurring, and as frequently as they were happening, I felt like this started to be personal to me.
This started happening only to me.
There was a lot of banging and I couldn't open the door.
I was freaked out.
- Jessica decides to seek support from the hospital's Chaplain.
- I said, "Why is this happening to me?" And something she said to me that was very profound was, "Walls remember.
You have to think "this hospital has been here for many years.
"These walls are reliving memories "and things that have happened in the past.
"You could just be a conduit that can see those memories.
" - Some people are more sensitive to feeling spirits and the presence of one, and they will pick up on it right away.
And in some cases, a spirit can be aware of that.
- Jessica gets back to work, but even routine tasks are now shadowed by fear.
- I'm making life evaluations at this point.
Is this worth it? Is the job worth it? What can I do to get this to stop? I'm terrified every day to go to work.
(gasping) - Whatever is haunting Jessica is closing in.
- In cases where you have poltergeist activity where it seems aggressive, it could be something that's built up a lot of energy over the years, or it could be potentially something negative, or demonic.
(lock clicks) - And by locking the fire doors, controlling where she can go.
(shaky breathing) - But terrifyingly, this door is locked too.
- These doors are always open, unless there's a fire alarm or a flood alert and then they are released from the magnets and they close.
(beeping) (sighing) - Jessica calls her friend, the security guard, for help.
- Hey, buddy.
- [Hey, what's up?.]
- I'm trapped downstairs between the fire doors.
He said, "Are you ----ting me? Are you making this up on me?" I said, "Well, there's doors right here "in this corridor that are closed on me.
I can't go anywhere.
" Near the morgue.
- [I'm on my way down.
.]
(door opens) - How did you get here so fast? (voices screaming) I had never seen anything that scared so much in my whole life.
(screaming) (panicked breathing) Hurry! Hurry! As events rolled on, it started to go into terror.
(suspenseful music) (whimpering) - The shadowy figure vanishes.
(gasping in relief) - Are you okay? (Jessica crying) Let's get you out of here.
- Nothing on his computer system showed that the fire doors had unlocked themselves and had actually closed.
Everything showed him that it was working just fine.
- Jessica is anything but fine.
But with one more crucial task to complete before the end of her shift, she has no time to react.
Patients' lives are at stake.
- So, all of our IV supplies are either pre-made or we have to reconstitute them ourselves to make sure that they're available for use in the night shift and for the next day.
- But whatever is haunting her won't let go.
(metallic rattling) - One of the litre bags, which is about two pounds, I would say, just lifts and chucks across the room.
(shaky breathing) My breath is quickening and my heart is quickening, and I've got the chills.
But I choose to push through it.
(frightened yelp) And that's when the cart goes flying across the room.
- Pharmacy Technician Jessica Brooks is the victim of inexplicable phenomena.
(frightened yelp) - Not only was the cart over a hundred pounds, but I put the safety brake on before I did it so it wouldn't move.
I could have gone from being a worker in the hospital to being a patient in the hospital.
And it was so loud and cacophonous that the pharmacist came out and was like, "What just happened?" And I'm looking at her like, "This is what I've been saying has been going on this whole time and no one believes me.
" (panting) - Jessica insists that they review the hospital's security footage.
- I'm anticipating, like, this is going to confirm exactly everything that I've been saying.
And it did.
It showed everything that I wanted it to show, and none of it could be explained.
(frightened screaming) And seeing it on camera, she wasn't able to deny it.
So it was a chance for me to validate and say, "Hey, this is really what's happening to me.
" - But the pharmacist cannot accept the paranormal event.
- But unfortunately, my pharmacist's mindset was, "I've seen this, you can prove this.
I'm not going there.
I'm not touching it.
" - Jessica is relieved when her shift is finally over.
- I get out to my car and I'm physically worn out.
I'm emotionally worn out.
I'm mentally exhausted.
(child laughing) (low growling) (scared breathing) And for a brief moment, I look up in the rear-view mirror.
I see a small child.
What? I was startled.
It completely freaked me out.
(thumping on car) - Jessica's instincts tell her to get as far away from the hospital as possible.
- I get out onto the main stretch and I'm driving.
(panicked breathing) I'm still panicky, I'm still shaking.
I'm just trying to decompress, I'm trying to calm down and I'm trying to drive home.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, my radio starts blaring.
(radio playing) (tires screeching) Right in front of me is a car that I was about to hit.
I slammed on the breaks.
If I hadn't done that, it would have hit me head on.
I would have been killed.
- (interviewer): Do you think that this child ghost was the same ghost that you were encountering inside, in the basement? - I feel that there were two entities.
I feel that there was something that was malevolent in the hospital, that did not want me there.
Or maybe the malevolent energy is what wanted me to have the car accident.
And the small child in the backseat pointing forwards was telling me, "Watch!", and stopping it.
It was a finality.
It was final.
I think that incident, that occurrence stopped it all for me.
I didn't have an issue after that.
- One month later, Jessica gives her notice and leaves her job.
- I do still live in the community and I do frequent the hospital as needed when, you know, friends or family are there.
- (interviewer): But how do you feel about going there? - I still feel extremely creeped out when going to the hospital, almost from the moment that I step foot on the property.
(screaming) (sirens blaring) (groaning) - I started having these strange pains.
I'd done my radio show that evening and I got home and laid down for about half an hour, and then told my girlfriend at the time, "I think I might be having a heart attack.
I'm gonna go to the hospital.
" (groaning) They quickly realized that I was having a pancreatitis attack.
And it was really painful.
They realized they needed to get my gallbladder out and put me into surgery within a day of being there.
I was about to go under the knife and that was really scary.
(beeping) I've had a profound lifelong fear of death and what comes next.
It was a moment of terror because I didn't want to go.
I wasn't ready to go.
- Dave Schrader's fear of death is profound.
But his surgery is successful.
In less than a day, Dave is up and walking around.
But there are complications.
- Originally, they thought that I would be there for a day and I ended up staying in a few days because of some of the side effects of the surgery.
They just wanted to make sure I was okay.
- And the complications aren't simply medical.
- This woman standing right in front of me, almost like she was playing in slow motion.
(hoarse breathing) Her hair would kind of move like it was almost blowing.
I'm trying to rationalize through this.
I'm trying to make sense of what it is that I'm experiencing and I'm realizing, "Um, you're on morphine.
"You're on a pretty healthy dose of pain reliever and medication here.
" But what was strange to me is, it's as detailed a memory to me as sitting right here, right now is.
She was obviously trying to communicate with me.
She was trying to talk to me or get my attention.
What what do you what do you want? But I couldn't tell what this woman was saying.
(hoarse breathing) What do you want? The longer she stood there and could tell I could see her but I wasn't hearing her, she seemed to get more frustrated and more irritable.
- Oftentimes, people will begin to have paranormal experiences or see entities if they've had a near-death experience, for example, or have come close to death because of a medical situation.
That can be, quite often, a very common way.
(woman screeching) - How can I help? No, no, no! - Dave Schrader survived surgery but now faces a terrifying visitor.
- How can I help? No, no, no! What do you want from me? - The woman is unable or unwilling to tell him.
And suddenly, she is gone.
- What? I was terrified.
I was confused.
It was just kind of this really strange mash of emotions.
- Emotions that Dave has felt before.
This isn't Dave's first experience with the paranormal.
In 2001, he travelled to Kentucky, to visit the site of a former sanitarium and to do an investigation.
As well as being host of a paranormal radio show, Dave is also a part-time ghost hunter.
(eerie music) - It's very dark, very late at night.
(thumping) And I turned, and right in front of me was a full 3D black shape, a shadow person.
(frightened yelp) Its shoulder went through my shoulder.
I felt nothing.
I wish I could say I felt a tingle or a sneeze, or a burp or something.
There was nothing.
(scared breathing) As quick as it appeared, it was gone.
So that was my first "holy ----" minute with the paranormal.
- Complications from the surgery require Dave to remain in the hospital.
He's visited by his long-time girlfriend, Claire.
- Hey.
How are you feeling? - All right.
- Can I get you anything? - I started to realize that there was something else in my room.
There was a presence.
(raspy breathing) And I just noticed this group of people.
They were kind of washed out and Grey-looking, shadow people at this point.
And they just kind of stood there, watching, and they were very they were very quiet.
- What is it? - My girlfriend couldn't see them.
- The question as to why some people are able to see spirits and some are not is a really hotly debated issue in the world of parapsychology.
One of the theories is the idea that spirits exist on different frequencies, just in the same way, for example, that we see different light frequencies.
Our eyes are really attuned to receive different signals, different light particles.
- Do you want me to call the doctor? (raspy breathing) What is it? - The first apparition has returned.
- She almost glided towards me.
She leaned over into my face.
- What's wrong? Are you in pain? - The cracked lips and the hair, and just those deep inset eyes and the anguish.
I was absolutely terrified.
- Do you want me to call the doctor? - I just knew they weren't from this side.
- Once again, the spirits leave as quickly as they arrive.
- I had the sense that they wanted some kind of connection to this side again.
That maybe it had been so long since someone had seen them and knew that they were there.
You become like a moth to a candle.
You become that candle for these beings, for these spirits.
- Spirits are very aware that there is open communication with people and what I've found is the fact that oftentimes, people will miss opportunities to have that communication with them.
But usually, what we find is that they are very anxious to communicate with people.
- I'm in a hospital, trying to recover, and suddenly my reality is shattered and I'm seeing things that I've never seen before and having these kind of very close encounters with the spirit world that really unnerve me.
- Only Dave Schrader can see the angry spirits trapped inside the hospital.
Dave's recovery continues.
His hospital stay grows longer.
- Hey.
Thanks for coming, man! My good friend and my producer and co-host of my radio show was there to visit.
He was joking around with me about the lengths I would go to avoid work and that I needed to get back in and do the show.
We had a little laugh about it, and then I drew my attention over to the right side of my room again.
I remembered having had guests on our show over the years talking about drugs and ayahuasca, and this natural DM in our brain will allow us to see these other realms.
And I was left wondering, "Have I opened up a different level of my consciousness or is this playing out in my mind?" - Patients oftentimes seem to be able to see these spirits because their brain state is really in a different place.
Oftentimes, they're in places of high stress.
Sometimes, they're under the influence of medication.
There's a bunch of different factors that fall into the idea that patients may be more receptive to this.
- And this was definitely one of the more terrifying moments for me.
The woman I felt was just frustrated.
She wanted to be heard and couldn't be heard.
But this man just looked at me and he pointed his finger, like this righteous indignation of, "How dare you? "Why aren't you hearing what we have to say? Why can't you help us?" And it was just that sense.
And I started to speak to them and I said, "I'm sorry, I can't hear you.
" (whimpering in fear) I felt like I was straddling two worlds, like I had a foot planted firmly in our world and one starting to go over into the spiritual side.
And they knew now that someone could see them.
And that someone was bearing witness to what was going on in this room.
- His recovery almost complete, Dave will be discharged tomorrow.
(Dave screaming) But his discharge isn't soon enough.
The spirits return and now, there's more of them than ever.
(whimpering) - There's a whole bunch of people in here and they're very upset.
(spirits screeching) - We find that oftentimes, spirits seem to be able to be receptive to the people that are aware of them.
(terrified screaming) - When they know you can see them or sense them, I think that's when they let themselves be known more.
(screeching) - In cases of negative entities, the communication tends, in those situations, to reflect things like dominance or a power struggle.
(spirits growling) - I was filled with a lot of dread and a sense of sadness because I could tell them, "I don't know what you want from me and I don't know what I can do to help you.
" And to know that maybe these were stranded souls, lost people, and there was nothing I could do broke my heart and made me feel like I was failing in a way.
- We need a doctor! What is happening? - I don't really know why we haunt specific areas.
Do people stay in the hospitals because that's the last place that their physical form was? Are they afraid to be judged? Are they afraid to go on to the next level because they don't know what is coming next? (whimpering) I was left with the question of what's worse; the idea of death, that there's nothing after this life? Or that we may be just stuck, stranded in the place where we last stood physically? (panting) It's okay.
- (interviewer): Was there a sense at some point that they kind of accepted that you weren't going to be able to help them? - It was very You know, for somebody who's afraid of death It was very tough to feel like there was nothing I could do for these people.
- Dave is finally discharged.
(sighing in relief) - Ready to go? - The experience changes not just him but his view of what happens when we die.
The best of what we are goes wherever it needs to go and the jealousy, the anger, the pettiness just the dark, base part of what we were stays behind.
I feel better thinking that maybe that is all that's left behind and that's why all that I saw was the anguish and despair.
- There has been cases in the past where people have seen apparitions, visual apparitions that they have not been able to communicate with.
And oftentimes, in those cases, those fall into a category called residual energy.
The idea behind it is that it's like the environment is somehow able to record situations that have happened previously.
- What was really them was gone and they were just a shadow of their former selves, literally.
(screaming) - Bettina Biller is one of this hospital's most dedicated volunteers.
- I volunteered because I felt that mentally and physically, it was good for me.
Because I like to help sick people.
So I used to go in once or twice a week at the critical ward and just help wherever they needed me.
And it was usually interaction with the patients.
- Hello.
Would you like a cookie? - Bettina serves on the palliative care ward for terminally ill patients.
- The palliative care unit is for very sick patients.
We hope and cross our fingers they do get better, but a lot of them spend the rest of their life there.
At one point in time, I did want to be a PSW worker and then proceed on to becoming a nurse, but due to my accident and everything, I just couldn't do it.
So volunteering was the next best thing.
- Stay with us.
Just keep listening to my voice, okay? Keep listening.
- A few years earlier, Bettina was in a major car accident.
- I was hit from behind with a truck.
- Bettina, my voice, okay? - Was it serious enough that there was thought that maybe you wouldn't make it? - Yes, I didn't think I was going to.
I was struggling for air and I couldn't really see anymore.
Everything just started going black and I felt my spirit actually leave my body.
- Volunteering is Bettina's way to pay back.
(monitors beeping) But then, something strange and unsettling happens to her.
(beeping continues) - It's impossible that they could just go off like that because they weren't plugged in.
So there was no explanation for why they actually went off.
(monitors beeping) - In Bettina's case, where electronic devices are reacting around her, even devices that aren't plugged in, it's very likely because she is sensitive.
She has some type of strong electrical aura around her.
She gives off a lot of energy.
- Several weeks pass and nothing inexplicable happens.
Over numerous visits, Bettina develops a strong connection to one patient in particular.
- Hello, Harry.
Care for a book? He had a very serious chronic cough and was on 2 oxygen tanks that were on the back of his wheelchair at all times because he just couldn't breathe.
I couldn't even understand what I was seeing at first.
I was in total disbelief.
I'm like, "Is there something wrong with my eyes?" He was totally being smothered.
- She's seeing it as this dark shadow figure attached to this man, this individual.
It's draining his energy, which may be what's killing him.
And it's like a vampire, almost.
It's drawing that energy.
- I honestly think he had no idea that he was being surrounded by a dark energy at all.
(eerie music) - Although disturbed, Bettina continues volunteering at the hospital.
(lights buzzing) - The second time I was assigned to him, I recall him coming down the hallway towards me.
He looked like he was totally being smothered around his entire body and the wheelchair, and just a dark, dark energy.
As he got closer to me, I could actually feel myself getting very, very sick and ill to my stomach.
I just did not feel well at all.
(pained breathing) You do feel like the life is being sucked from you and you feel like you're going to actually pass out.
- That tells me it's pulling energy from her, which is probably why she knows it's something dark.
She felt that negative energy coming from it.
(gasping) - Whatever it was doing to him, it was now trying to do to me.
- It begins to drain her energy because he was almost done and it's looking for a new source to feed off of.
- Stop! It just scared the hell out of me.
I'd never been so close to something so evil.
- Volunteer Bettina Biller witnesses a life draining entity.
(gasping) - Don't come near me! It felt to me like when I was around this gentleman, that my energy would be sucked from my body.
I just ran, as fast as I could go.
It's very scary because you don't know what's happening to you.
You have no control of your body.
- Bettina recovers.
Less than a week later, she is back at the hospital.
There, she makes an amazing discovery.
The elderly patient has made a full recovery.
- Bettina, in her case, could be a healer, an energy healer of some kind and not be aware of it.
And maybe that's why these things jump to her.
She's pulling them out of these people and not realizing it.
That's why the man begins to get better.
- Can you explain a little bit more what that feeling feels like? - Your body feels like it's stopped.
You feel overcome, you don't Everything just feels dark.
There is no happy emotion inside you.
Everything feels very dark and you turn very cold.
- A year passes.
Bettina is sure she's left the paranormal behind.
But then her sister calls.
- My sister was friends with this lady, Maryann, who asked if we could come visit her aunt in the hospital.
Due to a car accident, she was in a coma.
I think half of it was for moral support because they were going to take her life support off that afternoon.
They were going to have to say their goodbyes.
Ready? - Yeah.
- (crying): No! Wake up.
- When I entered the room, I was totally drawn towards the patient.
I couldn't see her face.
I really didn't know what she looked like.
The only thing I'd really seen was her hand sticking out of the sheets.
- The patient relies on life support to stay alive.
She is immobile, unresponsive and considered beyond reach.
- And as I touched her hand, I had this very strange, eerie feeling of this really brisk cold shoot up my back, where every hair on my body was standing up.
I had a very strange feeling of anger overcome me.
I felt like I just swallowed something that wasn't there.
I could literally feel it.
(screaming) It was some kind of energy, but I'm not sure.
I've never felt that before.
I didn't actually talk to her with my mouth.
I was talking with my mind.
I said, "Could you please tell me if you can hear me? Please move your fingers.
" I said, "Please, if you can still hear me, could you please move your right leg?" - A patient considered braindead becomes responsive.
- The nurse was in total disbelief that the lady moved at all.
She was scared.
(suspenseful music) I was scared.
It felt like something else took over.
There was somebody intervening between the two of us.
(screaming) - In Bettina's case, all this bad energy is going to her.
She realizes that negative spirits are transferring to her and trying to drain her.
So, it was probably a smart move that she pulled away from that.
Otherwise, she would have ended up dead herself.
- The feeling I get when this happens, it is pretty much like a trance.
I feel like my body has absolutely no feeling to it from head to toe.
I feel nothing, but I do feel that I'm standing off the ground, about two feet in the air.
(monitor beeping) Everybody was in shock.
They didn't know why she was moving or how she could be moving when all the doctors and everyone told her that she won't be making it.
- What happened to the patient after that, as far as you know? - As far as I know, the patient did walk out of the hospital a week later.
- (interviewer): Which is like a miracle.
- After what the doctors have said and what everybody was telling me, it was a total miracle, I suppose.