- I was excited to start working.
I thought I wanted to be a doctor.
- And then I started to hear something.
- Is anybody there? (screaming)
- No one else saw it but me. (growling)
- I'm holding onto him and I'm terrified and trembling. (growling)
(screaming)
- And that completely freaked me out.
♪♪♪
(screaming)
(growling)
(inaudible)
- (narrator): Fresh off her first year of college,
teenager Marcy Pearsall is hired
at the facility by her mom.
- My mother was the director of nursing
and she thought she had the perfect job for me.
That was to be a nurse's aide. I thought I wanted to be a doctor.
- Don't forget, tomorrow you're going to have to punch in, too.
OK? That's all there is to it.
- I was excited to start working.
I was 19 years old and this was my first job.
- (narrator): But at night, the whole place
takes on a different tone.
- It was a lot of hard work,
but I met some terrific people,
not only the people I worked with,
but patients who required daily care
with their washing, eating, clothing, etc.
I grew to love these people.
- (narrator): But the perfect summer job takes on a dark twist
when Marcy is assigned to work the night shift
in a facility long believed by locals to be haunted.
(screaming)
At night, the whole place takes on a different tone.
- When I walked through those doors...
(suspenseful music)
(door slamming)
(voices whispering)
(baby crying)
It was an uncomfortable feeling.
And there is a sense of a coldness and an aloneness.
(screaming)
Just a sense of loneliness.
(door slamming)
There were times when you'd hear a door shut...
(door slamming)
And when they shut, there's a vibration and there's an echo.
(door slamming and creaking)
I definitely felt uneasy.
It's an old place, so I didn't think very much of that,
but I thought so that starts to set
the stage for you to go, "This is a little odd."
- (narrator): But a few nights later,
those strange feelings come to a head.
- I had just put the residents into bed,
so this would've been probably about 10 o'clock in the evening.
(footsteps)
I heard footsteps,
and there was not supposed to be anyone off of my floor.
(footsteps and door slamming)
I heard the door slam.
- (narrator): And the 19-year-old
is the only staff member in the wing.
- (interviewer): What's your biggest concern here?
- The safety of the residents was always a concern.
A resident leaving the facility was always a fear.
You wanted to keep people accounted for and safe.
The door slam was on a stairwell
that would go from the second floor down to the first floor.
But it wasn't one that was used very often.
(creaking)
- (narrator): Marcy needs to know
if it's just the creak of an old house...
or if she's dealing with someone that shouldn't be there.
- I looked down the stairs...
And no one was there.
I thought, "How weird", because I never heard a door
open or close for anyone to go out.
And that creeped me out.
- (narrator): But she feels that something is still very much
in that room.
- I felt an energy around me.
(creaking)
I felt kind of a heaviness on my shoulders and around my neck.
(whiny sounds)
Like there was a presence hovering over me.
Like someone breathing on me.
I just felt like I needed to push forward.
(heavy breathing) (screaming)
There was no explanation.
Someone went in there and didn't come back out.
And I found myself
wanting to get out of there as soon as possible.
(eerie breathing)
- (narrator): A few nights later,
Marcy starts having second thoughts about the dream job
that she got through her mother.
- The nurse wanted you to take these lab results to her.
There was the feeling of, "What did you get me into?"
It was already bad enough that I was working all these night shifts,
but now I'm beginning to wonder what else is going on here.
I hear general noises such as doors,
I hear a cough, but you think, "OK,
people are sleeping. This is their home."
(low growling) But you would look up
and there was a set of lights...
...and at any given time during the night,
the lights would start to flicker.
Thinking, "Oh, there's something wrong", I would go up
to the light switch and kind of flick them on and off
and they'd be fine.
- It's hard to tell whether something
is being done on purpose as a communication
or whether it's something that's actually happening
atmospherically, because something has changed
in the electric energy in the room.
(footsteps)
- And then they would flicker again.
- (interviewer): Marcy...
what did you see in that room?
- (narrator): At her new job, Marcy experiences bizarre events
she can't explain.
- There was a rocking chair...
and it was rocking.
I didn't hear footsteps, I didn't hear a voice;
I felt like there was...
a presence.
And as I looked at it...
It just stopped.
And that completely freaked me out.
- This could be a situation of poltergeist activity,
either a spirit that's purposely moving the rocking chair
or something else going on that we can't explain.
- I think I was stunned. I think I was just kinda numb
and questioning what it was.
The overall effect that had was: "What is going on here?"
- Experiencing a haunting that's escalating
can be an extremely vulnerable place to be in,
because their world is shifting and changing and they can't understand why.
- (narrator): One thing is clear:
whatever is happening in the nursing home...
(whispering)
...is only happening to Marcy.
(screaming)
- No one else was getting spooked.
No one else was getting scared.
I was thinking: "OK, what's next?"
- (narrator): But the worst was yet to come.
- I was working the day shift
on the floor where people require the most care
and this one resident, I remember her,
lovely lady,
and as I'm feeding her...
(whooshing)
I felt like a wisp of wind that made me look back.
And...
I saw a little boy.
And as quickly as I saw him, he was gone.
This is 8:30 in the morning
and there weren't visitors at that time.
(child giggling)
I was wondering who this little boy was.
I was wondering where his parents were.
And I also thought: "Who dressed him funny?"
It wasn't modern clothing.
To me, it felt like another time.
- Oftentimes, people will report seeing them
in period clothing, and what we found
is that human spirits oftentimes manifest themselves
at a time in their life when they were having the most fun,
that they were really enjoying something.
- You haven't seen a little boy running around here, right?
And they looked at me like, "No".
And I said: "I swear I saw a little boy
peek in when I was feeding breakfast."
And they said: "There's no one here, Marce." "OK."
- (narrator): Later that day,
Marcy learns that her patient has died
and takes the news hard.
- This is where the chill of all chills went through me,
because I just felt
a wisp of wind, and when I looked back...
I saw the boy. (whooshing)
I watched him run, but there was no sound.
- (interviewer): So he ran full speed but you heard nothing?
- Heard nothing. I heard nothing.
Did you see a little boy run past here?
I didn't know what to believe.
I didn't know what was real.
- (narrator): But later that week,
all that would change.
- I was working days again, on the same floor,
and I was in the room with a gentleman, this time.
(whooshing)
And I felt a heaviness.
I felt like there was someone else in there with us.
(whooshing)
The breeze came through the room...
- During a haunting, what can be reported frequently
is drops in temperature and breezes that can't be explained.
Sometimes it can be something as simple as communication,
but it can also be at times a sign of a negative entity.
- I looked over my right shoulder...
And it was the same boy.
It was the same ball cap.
- (narrator): With one small exception.
He turns invisible.
- That, to me, was the confirmation--
I really saw a ghost. There was no going back after that.
- (narrator): That evening, for a second time in a week,
Marcy's patient dies following a visitation
from the mysterious boy.
- I made the connection at that time that this little boy,
for whatever reason, he was looking in at these two people
and they passed shortly after that.
- Entities may actually be able to recognise or tell
whether or not somebody is coming close to the end of their life.
It's possible that this young boy
may have been interested in giving Marcy more of his own history.
- (narrator): She goes looking for answers.
She heads to the basement storage area,
hoping to uncover the identity of the little boy ghost.
- When a resident would die, families, a lot of times,
would not pick up their belongings,
so they would be kept in that storage area.
(screaming)
Every once in a while, you would feel the wind.
There should've been no wind there.
- (interviewer): Did you ever see anything
a little out of place in that basement?
- Yes.
Something that chilled me to the core.
(voices whispering)
I knew whatever this was was not of this world.
- (narrator): Marcy Pearsall's summer job
has included hauntings by two separate spirits.
Carrying the unclaimed possessions
of her recently deceased patient,
Marcy reaches the storage room.
- When residents come in, they come in with their suitcases
that will have their name on them,
clothes that they're coming in
that they're probably never gonna wear again.
Suitcase after suitcase after suitcase,
the easy chairs, the rockers, pictures,
paintings...
- (narrator): One particular artefact resonates.
Marcy is drawn to a newspaper article from the 1950s.
- In the 1950s, in the US and Canada,
there were a lot of trials that were done unauthorised
on both polio and tuberculosis vaccines.
Unfortunately, a lot of those people were children
and many passed away.
- When I was told about this polio vaccine experiment
and that there were possibly children who had passed,
the first thing that did come into my mind was: "Wait a minute.
(screaming) Was that that little boy?"
I remember coming across a couple of baseballs and a glove
and wondering if that didn't have
something to do with that little boy.
- (narrator): Could the spirits haunting this space have been
unwilling or unknowing test subjects?
- The idea that we will die a horrible death
and get stuck here is something that we hear about quite frequently.
We've found that all of the entities
that we've dealt with and encountered,
all of these people have a reason for being here.
(whooshing)
- Not all people are aware, but there's a cemetery behind the facility.
I think there is a lot of sadness
that they were buried alone, that they may have died alone.
(whooshing and whispering)
- (narrator): That realisation is both sad
and terrifying.
- I knew this was a life-changing event.
I knew from that moment on that I was changed.
As far as what it changed for me about believing
in the spirit world-- it validated it completely,
and every time I go past the facility now,
I look at this great castle-like structure
and I think of how many people
have both lived and died there.
I have no doubts that spirits exist. I have no doubts
that whatever the veil they speak of,
we can walk freely back and forth
and I believe the other side does.
(panicked exclamations)
(whooshing and screaming)
- (narrator): It's been another long evening,
racing across the city
transporting emergency patients to the local hospital
for veteran paramedic Betty Lawrence.
- I was working as an EMT, both on emergency calls
and on what's called transports.
More calls come in in the evening;
there are more accidents with lightning and weather
and that type of things.
- (narrator): With her shift done, she heads out to meet
her boyfriend, who also works at the hospital
as a security guard.
Her boyfriend works at the building next door,
what used to be the original hospital,
which for years now has sat empty.
- My boyfriend called me up and he said:
"Come see me. I'm tired of being alone here."
- (narrator): But her boyfriend isn't quite done with his shift.
He has one last round to make in the old empty building.
- And I'm thinking, "Well, OK,
I'll wait here for you." And he's like, "No, come with me."
I'd heard it was haunted,
and I thought:
"OK, I'm not gonna be alone,
it'll be all right, I'll be with him."
And we began to go in.
No, you really didn't.
- (narrator): Her boyfriend's main security issue
is illegal trespassers.
- He was looking for kids trying to break in
and mess around and that type of thing,
and that made me a little uneasy.
Then I felt like I was looking into...
a facility that all of a sudden
just stopped functioning in the middle of the day.
Why is the equipment still here?
It was like all the people just disintegrated,
and that was disturbing about it.
- I never really thought about it before, but... it's weird.
- Abandoned hospitals are very attractive to spirits
because so much death happens there
that I do believe spirit energy just gets trapped there.
- (narrator): And some hospital staff believe this to be true.
- My boyfriend told me that one of his coworkers
recorded sounds in the OR, and when he played it back,
he heard someone asking: "Help me! Help me!"
(eerie sounds)
(sobbing)
(whooshing and whispering)
And then I started to hear something.
- (narrator): Thinking that it's just her imagination,
she keeps it to herself. - I'm trying to be...
brave and not act like I'm a big scaredy-cat.
But as we got further into the building, it got darker.
(whooshing)
And I became more spooked.
- (narrator): On this lower level, the strange sounds
seem to be getting louder, at least for Betty.
- And we got to this room,
and I'll never forget
the number. It was 4B.
- (interviewer): What did you see in room 4B, Betty?
(screaming)
- The chair moving about a foot forward.
It moved. It was facing in the other direction.
- I think you're just seeing things.
- And of course, he's looking at me like, "OK, she's crazy."
- Stay close. Come on.
(whiny cry)
- I kept telling myself it was a trick of the light.
It was the way the light was moving.
- (narrator): As they reach
the old operating room in the basement,
they're halfway through her boyfriend's round...
and the furthest point to the exit door.
- And we started to move forward
into the first operating theatre.
That scared me, just the appearance of it.
They had left the operating table,
there were trays
that looked like they would've had equipment on them...
It was like walking into a cave,
because there was no outside light of any kind.
And the darkness started to be oppressive.
The room was cold, like the air conditioning
was turned up as high as it could go.
- (narrator): And suddenly...
(sobbing) (loud clank)
...the sound of a little girl crying.
(sobbing)
- Can you hear that?
It seemed to be all around us.
It was kind of like it came
from the very walls of the building itself.
I'm thinking there's somebody in the room,
some flesh-and-blood person in the room.
- (narrator): But whatever is in that room is neither flesh
nor blood.
- (narrator): Betty and her boyfriend's patrol
of a closed hospital wing...
(screaming)
...leads to a terrifying discovery.
(eerie sounds)
- Everywhere I turn,
I hear this little girl crying.
- (interviewer): Was it loud, hysterical?
- It was a high-pitched cry.
Little girls, when they get scared,
they'll do this little quiet sobby voice,
and that's what it sounded like to me.
(sobbing) Can you hear that?
(sobbing)
It was almost desperate,
as if it was a child that had been alone for a long time.
(sobbing)
Like someone who had lost something.
(wailing)
(whining)
Hello? Hello?!
(sobbing) Is anybody there?
Can you hear me? - (narrator): Betty realises
that she's dealing with something that cannot be found.
- It was terrifying for me
in that my mind started to go to what had happened here.
(heavy breathing) Oh God...
Where is she?
Were the very walls themselves doing the crying noise?
(eerie sounds)
I was getting very frightened.
The hair on my neck was standing up, my arms, it was cold...
We searched all over the OR rooms.
(sobbing)
Normally, if someone's talking or making a noise,
you can find them, it gets louder, and that never happened.
- (narrator): Then... (screaming)
Something they would never forget.
(giggling) - I was terrified
and none of my training prepared me to deal
with things that couldn't be rationally explained
or dealt with. (giggling)
- (narrator): As they race for the exit,
Betty feels that an invisible hand...
- Come on! - ...is holding her back.
- Whatever was in there, it wanted to keep me there.
(screaming) - Come on!
Come on!
- I know things existed, but it wasn't like I went out
and sought them out to experience them.
- (narrator): On their way out, as they pass room 4B...
(strange sound) ...they hear the girl
clearly inside. (whimper)
- Turn it on, turn it on! - I'm trying!
(low sobbing)
She sounded so mournful, so lost.
- Turn it on, turn it on! - Like she was just...
- Turn it on! - I'm trying!
...desperate for help.
And all of a sudden...
Scared me to death.
- (narrator): Betty and her boyfriend are under attack
by an entity... (screaming)
...who's out for blood.
- You all right? - Yes. Yes.
Don't! Don't!
(giggling)
- This particular case, you're dealing with a child spirit
that seems to be actually kind of negative,
so the actions of this child spirit suggest
it's of evil intent.
- Hello? - (narrator): Her boyfriend
decides to check it out. - We have to go! Now!
- He figured that there were pranksters,
that there were teenagers in the room and they thought
they were gonna pull a prank on us.
- (interviewer): So he marches into the room; what did you do?
- I was torn, because I didn't want to go into that room,
and at the same time, I didn't want to be in the hallway by myself either.
There was nothing out of the ordinary inside.
The room was empty. (scared whimpers)
- Let's go, let's go!
- I'm holding onto him and I'm terrified and trembling.
- It is possible that this child spirit they're hearing
is someone who passed away there.
It's also possible
this child spirit is blaming the two of them for her own death.
(screaming)
- I just wanted to get out of the building.
- (narrator): Once outside, they can finally breathe
a massive sigh of relief...
and take stock.
- Having lived through that,
it made me a believer that such things existed.
Before, I would've been looking for the scientific explanation,
and if someone would've told me the story that I just told,
I wouldn't have believed them.
To this day,
the sound of her voice still haunts me.
- (narrator): In a community hospital
in New York's Hudson Valley,
veteran ER nurse supervisor Sandra Kenna
has no doubt that spirits walk amongst us.
- I've always believed in the paranormal.
The only time I really have been scared by spirits
was at one of the hospitals where I worked.
- (narrator): Especially one particular evening,
on Hallows' Eve. - I'm sitting
at the nurses' station... (beeping)
And I saw the call bell go off.
I began walking down the hallway toward the patient's room.
- (narrator): That's when Sandra sees something
she cannot explain.
- She was dressed in what appeared to be
an old nurse's white uniform.
- One of the debates in the paranormal world is
why do we see apparitions one way and then sometimes another?
It's theorised that people may not be able to see completely
into the frequency in which they're actually existing.
- I'm concerned,
because I know it's none of my coworkers,
because none of us wear old-fashioned white uniforms anymore.
- (narrator): When she disappears
into the patient's room,
Sandra starts to panic.
- My job as a nurse is to take care of the patients
and keep them safe no matter what.
Excuse me! Excuse--
- (interviewer): So you enter the room, and then what happens?
- And there's no one there. (long beep)
I no longer see this white shadow,
this other person in the room.
- (interviewer): Anything else? - Yes.
Turns out that the poor man had passed away.
And it was rather scary and terrifying.
(whispering)
That's when I heard the whispering.
You could not make out what actually was being said,
and it sounded like a feeble old woman.
I'm the only one that ever heard these whispers as far as I know.
- (narrator): But she cannot find
where the sounds are coming from.
- It was rather scary to see this nurse,
not knowing who it was.
(whispering)
Could've been maybe a stranger or someone off the street
that shouldn't be in the room or shouldn't have access to the hospital.
It kind of scared me and kind of was freaking me out
because no one else saw it but me.
- (narrator): Sandra witnesses what she thinks...
- Excuse me! Excuse me...
- (narrator): ...is a harbinger of death.
- It was very unnerving to see this woman,
or the shadow, go into a patient's room.
It caused a lot of anxiety because the patient passed away.
- (narrator): But over the course of the next few months,
a dark, terrifying pattern emerges.
(beeping)
- I learned, over the course of time,
when this white nurse went into one of the patients' rooms,
a few minutes later, the patient passed away.
After seeing her many times in that same hallway...
(whispering)
I actually began to call this person an angel of death.
As an old nurse,
maybe she had taken care of only hospice or palliative care,
end-of-life patients in the past.
(exhalation)
And now she was doing it
for all of eternity on the same floor.
It was her calling in life
and her continual calling in death.
- My opinion about this particular incident
with the nurse is that she absolutely
knew where she was, knew what she was doing,
and was there to assist somebody in a really hard time.
- (narrator): But soon, Sandra is shifted
to another floor of the hospital.
- Not long after, I had left the medical floor
to work somewhere else.
- (narrator): Where she no longer encounters
the angel of death.
- I was glad to leave that old shadow nurse
behind on the medical floor.
- (narrator): But Sandra is confronted by something
even more unsettling than the angel of death.
(whispering) - It felt like...
somebody was watching me.
- (interviewer): Like a presence? - Like a presence, yes.
- The unknown can be a really disturbing place for people.
Paranormal experiences can make people feel very isolated,
and when we get a situation where somebody's working alone,
then it becomes even more amplified.
- I felt very afraid.
I could feel like the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
(growling)
It appeared to be like a tall dark black shadow following me.
It terrified me.
- (narrator): She considers calling for help,
but she senses that this is a spirit
that she must face on her own.
- (interviewer): Did you see anything after that? - Yes.
- (narrator): Too terrified to turn around, she improvises.
This time, the black shadow takes on a more human shape.
- There was a tall black figure
dressed in a long black trench coat
with a black fedora-type hat.
- (narrator): Sandra is shocked to see a familiar face.
- It took me by surprise, more or less.
I feel as though it was my father.
My dad, when he was alive,
always wore this long black trench coat
and he always wore a fedora-type hat.
- Human spirits tend to really be looking
for the comfort of their loved ones, so the idea
that maybe her father didn't show himself right away
might actually be an indicator of the fact
that he may have not been too sure how to approach her.
- I had always been very close with my dad.
He was... everything to me
and I was his... what he called his little princess.
- (narrator): Sandra is suddenly overcome with emotions.
I believe that the shadow
was my father following me and watching over me
and guiding me and helping me and keeping me safe.
- (narrator): Over the next few weeks, Sandra
is comforted by the feeling of her father's presence nearby.
- One nurse in particular
said to me one night: "Sandy, who is that tall man
following you down the hall?" And I turned to her and I said:
"That's just my dad. Don't worry."
- (narrator): Within weeks, Sandra has interacted
with two very different spirits.
- She saw this nurse entity
in the hospital, and, not too long later,
saw the apparition of her father.
Sometimes, when we get into
that state of expectation and that state of allowing,
we end up seeing more things than we would normally.
- Where the white shadow figure
was more like the bearer
of bad news or the bearer of death,
then this shadow figure was my father
guiding me
and keeping me safe.
- (interviewer): Is he standing behind you right now?
- Right now, no. There is no one standing beside me right now.
- And cut! - Cut!
(theme song)