Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Buried Alive

A universal fear of all humans, a fear that crosses distance and different languages, is the fear of being buried alive. In the early 1800s, Samuel Jocelyn lived in Wilmington, North Carolina. As the son of a well-respected local lawyer, Sam enjoyed a great amount of respect himself. The young man was best friends with another young man named Alexander Hostler. The two men shared many interests and were always seen together.

During a discussion one day with a group of friends, the idea arose of returning from death and making your presence known. While the rest of the group laughed at the idea, Sam and Alexander both defended it. While discussing the matter later, a deal was struck between the two men that the first one to die would come back and make his presence known to the other. They would not have to wait long.

Sam loved horses and had a stable of fine steeds. He found great pleasure in taking to the wooded trails on one of his fine horses and forget any troubles. One afternoon as Sam was out for a ride, tragedy struck. No one knows what happened, but Sam was found unresponsive in the middle of a trail near his home, his horse a few yards away grazing.

He was taken back home where everything medical science had to offer was tried in an attempt to wake the boy from his coma, but it proved to be no use. Two days later, Sam Jocelyn was declared dead and was buried in St. James Church cemetery. The funeral was a massive event with hundreds of people from the area in attendance.

Alexander was beside himself after his friend's death. Many thought he might die of grief. As Alexander lay in bed two nights after Sam's burial, a ghostly vision suddenly appeared. It was his friend Sam. "How could you let me be buried when I am not yet dead?" the ghost asked Alexander. Horrified both by what he saw and the prospect of burying his dearest friend alive, Alexander stuttered "Not dead?". "No, I was not. Open the coffin and you will see that I am not in the same position you buried me in." And with that, the ghost of Sam Jocelyn faded away.

The next morning Alexander doubted that what he saw was real. Through the day as he thought about it, he decided it was nothing more than grief that had caused him to imagine the ghost. That night saw the ghost of Sam Jocelyn come back though and once again ask of his friend "How could you let me be buried when I am not yet dead?" This time the spirit's tone was more urgent, begging even.

Alexander then realized that what he saw was real, but afraid of people thinking him insane, he decided to say nothing. Not until the third night anyway when the ghost of Sam appeared again. This time the ghost pleaded with the living Alexander "How could you let me be buried when I am not yet dead?" Alexander decided right then to investigate the claims of the spirit as the ghost slowly vanished into nothingness.

The next morning, Alexander found his other friend, Louis Toomer, and told him everything. Toomer agreed to help Alexander only because he thought it might save what was left of Alexander's sanity. They went to Sam's family and sought permission to dig up his casket. Seeing how upset Alexander was, they agreed, but with the stipulation it be done in private. 

Late that night, Toomer and Alexander snuck into the St. James cemetery with shovels and began to remove the still fresh earth from the grave. Before long, their shovels met with the coffin. They opened the lid and lowered a lantern. There in the coffin was Sam, but as the ghost had said, he was not in the position they had placed him in. He was face down. Deep scratches were on the inside of the casket and the struggling, no doubt terrified young man had managed to loosen one side of the lid. Death had not come from the accident on the road, but suffocation from being buried alive.

Until the day he died just a year later, Alexander Hostler would sit in front of the grave of his friend all night muttering over and over "I'm sorry, I didn't know. I'm sorry, I didn't know".


Wednesday, January 13, 2016

The Haunted Battlefield of Chickamauga

Chickamauga National Park
(photo courtesy NPS)
It shouldn't come as a surprise that Civil War battlefields are some of the most haunted places in America. With so much fear, death, destruction, suffering and sorrow concentrated in one area, it would be a surprise if they were not.

For four long years, brother fought brother and families fought families. When the two sides clashed at Chickamauga, Georgia in September of 1863, the battle became the second bloodiest engagement of the entire Civil War.  For two days in September, almost 125,000 men fought fierce close-quarters and hand-to-hand battles. When it was over, there were 37,129 casualty's and the fields and woods were strewn with the dead and wounded. In some places, the dead lay where they died, stacked so high "a tall man couldn't see over them." After the battle, many of the dead were not found for days and many wounded died agonizing deaths as they lay unfound. For weeks afterwards, nameless dead combatants were buried in hastily dug trenches, sometimes Confederate laid next to Union, covered with dirt and soon forgotten.

Chickamauga Creek (the battlefield is now a National Park) is located close to Chattanooga near the Tennessee-Georgia border. The first Indian inhabitants of the area gave it the name Tsïkäma'gï . The Cherokee who came later continued to call it by that name and when the white man came along, they pronounced it Chickamauga. According to the Indians, the meaning of the word Tsïkäma'gï is "river of death." It is a name the area has surely earned. Over the years, untimely death seems to happen much more often here than can reasonably be expected. In 1898, Chickamauga became a training camp for soldiers headed for the Spanish-American war. Disease repeatedly swept through the camp, killing more men than died in the war itself. The woods and thickets over the centuries have been an unofficial burial ground for the Indians, Civil War troops and many other's. For some reason, many sick and disturbed people are drawn to  this place where they end their lives by their own hand.

Not long after the great battle, area residents began to report hearing strange things after dark - gun shots, soldiers marching, men moaning and crying out in pain, horrifying screams. Mysterious flickering lights were seen along with black shapes that disappeared when the viewer tried to get a closer look.

(photo courtesy NPS)
One day a lady dressed in a white dress showed up at the battlefield. She walked and walked among the grave mounds, over the blood-stained soil, across fields and into the woods. She was there to find the body of her husband, her childhood sweetheart whom she had recently married while he was on leave, just before he returned to his unit in time to fight in the battle. Years later, it is said she lost her mind there, beaten down by her grief. She supposedly refused to come back to her boarding room at night, refused to eat, and refused to leave the site. One day she wasn't there. No one saw her leave, a body was never found, but through the years and occasionally today, visitors who tarry in the park after dark report seeing a ghostly female apparition dressed in a flowing white dress wandering through the fields and woods, forever looking for the body of her lost love. Even in death, she has found no rest.

Another apparition seen over the years is a headless horseman. He is thought to be Lieutenant Colonel Julius Garesche, who was killed by a cannonball during the battle. He was well respected by his men and during a lull in the fighting, they buried him in a shallow grave on a nearby hill. A letter by General William Hazen described his remains when he found him - "I saw but a headless trunk; an eddy of crimson foam had issued where the head should be. I at once recognized his figure, it lay so naturally, his right hand across his breast. As I approached, dismounted, and bent over him, the contraction of a muscle extended his hand slowly and slightly towards me. Taking hold of it, I found it still warm and lifelike." Evidently, his decapitated ghost remains at Chickamauga, galloping through the woods at night.

Perhaps the most famous and often seen apparition is "Old Green Eyes," a strange, otherworldly creature, half man, half beast. He walks on two legs and has long, stringy hair reaching down to his waist. Some have reported him to have huge jaws with two long, sharp fangs sticking out. Others report him to be wearing some kind of dark cape around his shoulders and the cape appears to be blowing in the wind even when there is not even a gentle breeze.  The one thing everyone agrees on however, is his glowing, green eyes which shine in the dark.

It is one thing for visitors to announce strange, unexplained sounds and sightings, but when a down-to-earth park ranger admits to seeing a ghost, one has to take it rather serious. Several years ago, Edward Tinney, a chief ranger at the park reported, "One day at about four a.m., I went to check on some battle reenactors who were camping out in the park. I was walking near Glen Kelly Road when I saw a tall figure, over 6 feet in height, walking toward me. It seemed human, but at the same time, it wasn't. It had shaggy, stringy, waist-length black hair, green eyes and pointed teeth that resembled fangs. Feeling extremely threatened by this presence, I quickly crossed to the other side of the road. As he - or it - walked by me, he suddenly turned and kind of smiled at me, but it was a very devilish sort of grin. At that moment, a car came down the road and as its headlights hit the figure, it vanished right before my eyes."

(photo courtesy NPS)
A recent visitor, a Civil War buff and amateur military historian, had a run-in with Old Green Eyes. He emphasized that he was not in any way a believer in the paranormal, he was visiting Chickamauga Battlefield purely for the military history experience. It was just after sunset as he was heading back to his car to leave when he heard a low moaning sound from the woods he was walking near. Thinking someone was hurt, he hurried into the trees. He had no sooner reached the edge of the woods when he felt a strong sense of foreboding. Suddenly, he saw "this floating head with glowing, piercing green eyes which came bursting out of the trees! This thing wasn't scary - it was terrifying! I just yelled and ran like hell! When I got back to the road, I glanced behind me and saw nothing. I stopped and turned around and saw bushes moving just to the right of where I came running out, but nothing seemed to be following me. I ran the rest of the way to my parked car and sped out of there. I'll never forget what I saw and I doubt I'll ever go back there. I no longer discount the many stories of ghosts that haunt battlefields either."

Feel free to join the thousands of visitors who, during the day, come to Chickamauga Battlefield National Park with its tree-lined tranquil paths, stately manicured grounds with cannons, monuments, and other reminders of the War Between The States. Visit the museum, the visitor's center and go along on one of the ranger led tours. Just be warned though, it's probably not the kind of place you want to hang around in after the sun goes down.

Friday, November 13, 2015

The Haunted Sanatorium


Just outside a small town in northwest Arkansas sits what once was a Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Opened in 1909, by the time it closed in 1973, over 70,000 patients were treated there. When the facility was opened, the mortality rate from tuberculosis was over 80%. By the time it closed, it was down to 10%. During those years of medical advancement however, more than 20,000 people died before the facility was closed and the front gate was left unlocked for the first time in 63 years.
The Nyberg Building once housed over 1,000 patients at a time.  The sick people who came to live here knew it most likely was a death sentence as there was no sure cure. They were contagious and had to be quarantined away from their family and friends. They were sent here to live out what time they had left. The building now is closed, in disrepair and empty. TB has been conquered by modern medicine so there is no need for a TB sanatorium. Thank God. Thank God. The broken glass in some of the windows has been boarded over, but not all. The roof has gaping holes through which the rain and the winter snow pour through and the occasional pigeon returns to roost for the night.  
The halls that run the length of the building, and the rooms, especially the rooms, have an aura of sadness. Everything is covered in dust and cobwebs. The rooms where the people lived and breathed their last, room after room after room are each and every one dark, shadowy places infused with sorrow and misery. They were built as places where those who entered would never have to leave. And many of them seem to have found this a permanent home even after death.

From the time it opened until the late 1940’s, medical tactics for combating TB were often horrifying and even barbaric. For a while, doctors thought that giving the lungs time to rest was the best treatment. Of course, breathing is necessary for life, but to make the patient breathe less, they often would clip and pull out the phrenic nerve, the long chord which connects the spinal column to the diaphragm and enables breathing subconsciously. Without the phrenic nerve, the patient must consciously think about breathing and must force air into the lungs by contracting and relaxing the diaphragm. The painful procedure was most often done while the patient was fully awake so he could tell the surgeon whether or not he was prodding the right nerve. Other treatments were tried as well, such as opening up a patient’s chest, deflating the lungs, filling the chest cavity with sterilized ping pong balls and then sewing the chest closed to force the lungs into staying mostly deflated. This left the patient in a continuous state of gasping for air, always feeling on the verge of smothering to death. Another treatment was thoracoplasty, which is the removal of a large chunk of the patient’s ribs and chest muscles to force the lungs to collapse and not have the ability to fully inflate again. Many of the patients said they would welcome death from TB rather than continue to suffer from the “cure.”

For many of them, especially in the early years, there was nothing but boredom and fear every single day and night. With no cure prescribed except clean air and bedrest, they were left in their room laying in their bed with no human interaction and nothing to occupy their minds for hours at a time. Nothing to do but stare at the same walls, the same door, the same little rectangle of sky through the window, trying to breath and waiting to die. Those lucky enough to somehow survive the disease, the “cures,” and the boredom reported their life at the sanatorium was mostly one of sound. Laying in their bed, sounds were the only thing to focus on. Mostly it would be the sounds of someone in another room down the hall dying. “It always began with a long coughing spell, then it would turn into a kind of gurgling, raspy sound. Then it would get deathly quiet. You knew what happened.” Death was a daily occurrence. Death became routine.

When someone died like that, everything would get real quiet. A stillness would descend and then the nurses would push a gurney down the hallway, the wheels wobbling and squeaking. When it came back with a body on it headed to the morgue in the basement, the weight would cause the wheels to run straight and it no longer made a sound.

With this much tragedy, suffering and despair, is it any wonder some of the thousands who died here have not been able to leave? Several of the buildings in the complex are still occupied and serve as a home and training facility for over 130 developmentally challenged adults. Over the years, staff and maintenance workers have reported hundreds of ghostly incidents in every building, but especially in the Nyberg building where the TB patients were housed & treated. Forlorn faces looking out of broken windows in empty rooms, seeing quick-moving “shadow people” from the corner of the eyes, unexplained glowing orbs of light, lights in abandoned rooms glowing even though the electricity has been turned off, faint feathery touches on the neck and arms when nobody else is around, a strong feeling of being watched or “someone being there”, apparitions suddenly appearing or disappearing, and ghost people walking through solid doors and walls disappearing into empty rooms have all be reported. Most of the staff refuse to go anywhere near the Nyberg building after dark and more than a few have abruptly quit, stating they would “never come back to this place” after an encounter with a long dead resident.

Some of the developmentally challenged residents refuse to walk near the Nyberg building. They know nothing of the building’s history, but will pull back and cry out in terror whenever they are brought near it. There are good spirits and there are evil spirits and it seems some of the current residents are especially aware of the evil ones.

Only a few people know about one particular part of the 3rd floor in the Nyberg, the part that was blocked off from the rest of the floor and the rest of the building. TB doesn't discriminate. It doesn't care if you are a good person, an innocent child or a deranged axe murderer. Part of the 3rd floor, the part few know existed, was where the criminally insane, the murderers, the rapists, the child molesters and psychopaths were held after they had contracted TB in prison. This is where many of them took their last ragged breath. And, if the actions of the current sensitive mentally challenged residents are to be believed, this is where some of them, their essence forever rotten and evil, remain.