[Kenney] There was just this dread...
and it just kind of made my stomach kind of turn a little bit.
Immediately, I felt--
- ...this energy. - [woman screaming]
It feels like somebody is standing directly in front of me,
like we'd be looking eye to eye.
[woman] Don't you see him?
The Man!
My heart literally felt like it went to my stomach.
[Christina] There was nobody in there,
and he's like, "That's the haunted room."
I was shaking.
I honestly didn't know...
what we were going to find.
[Paige] All of a sudden, I did feel like something was watching me.
[Kenney] When I turned the corner, I came face to face
with something that scared me to death.
[scream]
I will never forget that sound.
Almost like something angry had its grip around me.
I can't even say that "scared" was a feeling anymore,
it was just, I was terrified.
[screams]
I just wanted to get out of there.
That screaming, I will never forget it.
[screams]
I hear it now, today.
[narrator] At a long-term care facility for elderly patients,
Paige Mitchell works the night shift as a personal support worker.
[Paige] A personal support worker
is someone that looks after the elderly,
if they're in a long-term care home
or a hospital setting.
I love being a personal support worker,
because it's nice to know that people are taken care of properly.
Alrighty...
- Nice and comfy? - Yes.
[Paige] It's gratifying for me, 'cause it's like,
what if they were my grandmother?
I'd want them to have the best care they could have.
- There we go, all set. - Thank you.
[Paige] A lot of my residents didn't have family,
so they were very much alone.
If I had known that my resident
was about to pass away,
I would make sure that I was there with them
so they weren't alone.
A lot of my shifts were holding the hands
of residents that were about to pass.
It's okay.
I'm right here, I'm right here.
[Paige] It was very heart-wrenching work,
it took a lot of toll on me, emotionally,
but at the end of the day, it wasn't about me,
it was about this resident not passing away alone.
You know, I would make sure they felt loved and welcomed
and that it was okay to pass.
It's all right.
[nurse on PA] Dr. Bradford, dial 187.
[narrator] On this night, Paige is assigned
to an unfamiliar wing for the first time.
I had heard rumors about wing two on the night shift.
Most PSWs refused to work down that wing at night
They said, "It's just a weird feeling,
and we don't like working there."
I honestly thought that maybe they were just tired
or exhausted from night shift after night shift.
I just kind of shrugged it off and was like,
"Maybe it's just a resident that's not nice at night."
[narrator] Paige will soon realize that those rumors
should not be brushed off so easily.
Do you smell smoke?
There was a slight, faint smell of smoke,
which was out of the ordinary.
Something's burning.
Maybe I should go check it out.
[Jacob] Yeah, let's take a look.
[Paige] We should investigate this
and make sure that, you know, nothing's wrong.
It's got to be coming from somewhere.
[Jacob] Yeah, no, it's got to be something.
I'm going to go this way.
[Paige] I'll check upstairs.
[narrator] Paige heads up to the offices on the second floor.
No one should be there after hours.
[Paige] The hallways were darkened at night.
Not even five seconds later,
I went cold.
It almost felt like the entire room
dropped its temperature.
All of a sudden, I did feel like something was watching me.
Nothing was there, but I still felt very afraid
and like something was staring at me.
[Paige breathes deeply]
It does start to occur to me that something else was there,
but darkness plays tricks on your eyes,
so I couldn't believe, fully, that there was something,
but I still felt very unnerved.
Did you find anything?
Nothing.
[Paige] We figured that nothing was burning and it was just an odd smell,
so we went back to the nurses' station,
thinking, you know, "This is weird."
Listen, there's, uh...
There's always something creepy down there.
What do you mean?
Just a feeling, you know?
[Paige] Every part of me didn't want to know any more,
I didn't want to find out,
I just wanted to leave it alone.
That feeling of being watched did not go away,
I was still feeling like I was being watched
while I was taking care of my resident.
[Jacob] How are you?
[resident] I'm feeling good.
[Jacob] Good. Well, we've got some fresh linens for you.
[Paige] I was in the middle of changing my resident...
[Jacob] Yeah, Paige and I...
[Paige] The second that shadow passed the doorway,
I experienced the worst feeling
I've ever had in my life.
[resident] How are you doing this evening?
[Jacob] I'm great.
I couldn't move.
Thank you so much for coming. It's nice to see you.
[Paige] I started to feel like I wasn't me.
[Jacob] Paige?
Paige?
Something had pretty much taken over me.
[roaring sound]
I tried to move my own limbs, I couldn't.
It felt like somebody was holding me down,
almost like something angry had its grip around me.
[roaring sound]
I can't even say that "scared" was a feeling anymore,
it was just, I was terrified.
[growling]
I tried to move my own limbs, I couldn't.
[breathes heavily]
[growling]
[breathes heavily]
And it felt angry,
and I believe that's why I felt so scared.
It was because I felt someone around me, holding me,
preventing me from getting to my resident.
Paige?
[Paige] I started to feel petrified,
like I wasn't me.
The outside, I was paralyzed,
on the inside, I was screaming at the top of my lungs.
[breathes heavily]
This thing, whatever it was, could hurt me.
[growling]
[breathes heavily]
This spirit might have been deliberately trying to put her
in a state of fear and intimidation,
so that the energetic output of her system was higher,
therefore an energy that the spirit could draw off of, like a battery.
Paige was exposed to so much of this spectral energy,
that it simply overloaded her system.
You know, it sent her into convulsions.
She's crying because she's trying to release this energy,
which she doesn't know how to process.
Paige, snap out of it!
[narrator] Her coworker cannot see the entity,
and is alarmed to see Paige paralyzed in fear.
[screaming]
[growling]
- [Paige screams] - Paige, snap out of it! Paige!
Paige! Paige! Paige! Paige!
Hey, Paige! Paige!
Paige, snap out of it! Hey! Paige! You okay?
[breathes heavily]
What got me back was my coworker
squeezing my shoulders and calling my name.
The moment I came to, I took a deep breath,
almost like I hadn't breathed for a while.
Are you okay?
[growling]
What?
Where are you going? Paige!
[Paige] I just ran by him
and needed to get out of that room
and to see if there was anything in that hallway.
Don't you see him?
- [Paige] See who? - The Man!
My heart literally felt
like it went to my stomach.
The Man! The Man!
[Paige] When I looked behind me,
nothing was there, but I still felt very afraid.
She said that he's calling himself "The Man."
And that's when I started to just go crazy inside.
I felt very confused.
It was hard for me to make it through for the rest of the shift.
I wanted to run.
Every part of me told me, "Get out of this building, there's something wrong."
[narrator] Paige returns to the nursing station, and tries to calm herself.
I need to stay for my residents,
but everything inside me still told me like, "You need to get out of here."
[call bell ringing]
About 20 minutes later, the call bell rang,
which shows us what room is calling
and what bed is calling.
What's wrong?
[Paige] The bed that was calling...
was the bed that I was standing at
when I had gone through my trance.
[call bell continues ringing]
Everything in my body told me, "Don't do it.
Don't. Do not go back down that hallway."
This resident potentially needs my help,
I need to do my job.
This resident was nowhere near a state of where we needed
to keep an eye to see if she was going to pass away.
She was very functioning, very lively resident.
She was completely fine.
It felt like the longest hallway I'd ever walked in my life,
and the entire time I was walking it,
I felt like eyes were on me,
something was hovering over me.
[call bell continues ringing]
Rita?
Hey, Rita.
Jacob?
Jacob.
I don't know what happened.
She's dead. She was fine 20 minutes ago.
- This doesn't make any sense. - [Paige] How was this woman
able to press a call bell seconds before she passed?
- I have no idea. - [Paige] There's no possible way.
[Paige] What do we do?
I guess we just take care of the body, for now.
[Paige] So, we had no idea why she passed.
There was no signs, no signals.
[guttural sounds]
All of a sudden, I went cold, my heart went back into my stomach.
[growling]
[roaring]
The feeling of being watched intensified a lot more.
I felt very terrified.
[roaring]
I believe we do have a layer of spiritual protection,
spirits, guardian angels that protect us
from things from this other realm,
but if we're in a severely weakened state,
if we're near death,
there might be entities that can come
and sap our life force,
our prana, to the point of death.
I think in this case this might have been an entity
who has come to escort the recently departed
to the other side.
It wasn't until actually later that night
that I believed that everything connected.
[indistinct chatter on PA]
[Paige] Due to the passing of my resident,
I decided to see if I was crazy.
I opened up the computer and I searched "The Man."
I wanted to know if this was a legend,
if this was just a thing that happened.
I just, I wanted to know an answer.
The third one down said something called,
"The Soul Taker."
As soon as I clicked the link of The Soul Taker,
everything shut off, the lights...
[breathes heavily]
[growling]
[roaring]
[screaming]
[roaring]
[screaming]
As soon as that happened,
my heart went back into my stomach,
and again, I wanted to run out of that building,
because something just wasn't right.
I Google-searched "The Man" again.
What?
No results found.
I had typed in the exact same thing
that I typed prior to seeing The Soul Taker.
[speaks indistinctly]
It almost felt like whatever was watching me
didn't want me to do anything that I was doing.
And it just felt like whatever was watching me
had it out for me.
Like they wanted me to leave.
The remainder of my shift, I stayed away from wing two,
I went down wing one and I just restocked everything
and just tried to stay on that wing
for as long as I could.
I was very shaken up for the rest of the shift.
I double-checked my steps, I looked over my shoulder,
I had the flashlight with me everywhere I went.
I didn't want to be in the dark alone.
I don't really tell this story a lot.
Every fiber in my body tells me just to leave it,
go away, don't tell it again.
[screams]
It was the only time
that I'd ever just cried after a shift.
It was the worst shift I had ever worked.
[screaming]
I was able to get myself home.
I couldn't sleep.
This has stayed with me ever since.
I can't forget it, the feeling does not leave me.
I'm still terrified to this day.
[woman crying]
[screaming]
[narrator] Death is a daily reality in hospitals,
so stories of paranormal events are not uncommon.
But older hospitals run by the church
hold a special place for close encounters
of the ghostly kind.
Christina is a veteran nurse who works in palliative care
with dying patients.
[Christina] I really like giving and caring for people,
especially when it's such a difficult time
in their life.
[narrator] Christina works at an old hospital,
founded by an order of nuns.
The sisters still have an impact
on the hospital.
There's statues.
Things like that just let you know
that the sisters have a presence there.
When I started nursing, I was in a very old hospital,
and I worked with a nurse who used to be able
to sense things, to see things.
And she told me that, whenever we worked together,
there was always a lot more activity.
I knew where she was coming from,
because I usually did sense things.
[woman crying]
When I left that hospital and then went to this hospital,
I felt like there's certain spots where somebody was there with you,
even though you didn't see anything.
[narrator] One particular trouble-spot is the stairwell
on the floor Christina works on.
I was doing rounds and I was trying to get up
to the fourth floor,
to check in with the unit, see what's going on.
Immediately, I felt this energy.
It feels like somebody is standing directly in front of me.
Feels like we'd be looking eye to eye.
[growling]
I decided to use the back stairwell.
When you get to the top, you're in a unit.
It's locked, nobody can get in, unless you can swipe in.
[electronic beep]
And it's all dark and the lights are all off.
I'm all by myself.
[call bell ringing]
And then a call light goes off above a patient door.
For a call bell to go off,
it needs to be pressed by the patient.
But there was nobody in there.
[call bell continues ringing]
I felt a chill go down my spine,
and I felt the hair on the back of my neck go up
as I looked up and saw that light.
Why did this just start going off as I walked by it?
[woman sobbing]
I got scared.
[woman crying]
The main thing on my mind was to get out.
[call bell continues ringing]
And I went over to the palliative care unit.
I said, "You're never going to guess
what just happened when I went through the unit next to you."
- [nurse] What? - The red call light was on
the door was locked, and I know nobody's in there.
Well, do you think it's still going off?
I don't know.
Well, let's go take a look.
[call bell continues ringing]
[Christina] I was shaking,
because I knew there couldn't be anybody in there,
but I honestly didn't know...
what we were going to find.
[call bell continues ringing]
The call light was going off by the bed.
Why won't it turn off?
I, here, here, here.
It won't... It won't stop.
It was surreal, it just didn't make any sense.
[call bell continues ringing]
And then we called security,
and he said, "Is it room number nine?"
-[security guard] ...number nine? -Yes, it's room nine.
Why?
And he's, like, "That's the haunted room."
[screams]
[call bell continues ringing]
[Christina] I just felt scared.
[woman screaming]
Fear is such a powerful emotion.
All of us have felt fear.
But fear is also, it's not just the emotion,
it's the high psychic output that's able to imprint itself,
almost like a fingerprint, a spectral fingerprint
that those of us who are more sensitive
to this energy might be able to easily pick up on.
We're kind of lending our energy to this phenomenon,
so we're reactivating it
based on, perhaps, the emotions we're feeling,
might be similar to the emotions
the spirit expressed at the time of their death.
[narrator] Later in her shift, Christina is on break,
and uses the time to calm her nerves.
[Christina] Usually, around maybe 02:30 or 03:00,
I would go down to the hospital gym.
And you have to go down to the basement.
When I do go down there,
I would sometimes get in my head
and get a little freaked out.
[woman screaming]
When you go to the hospital gym,
you're the only one, essentially,
that's in that building.
The only way you can get into the hospital gym
is if you swipe in.
[electronic beep]
[banging]
And I thought, "What in the world is that?"
[banging]
I figured if I call security,
he'll just say it's the water running through the old pipes,
but it did not sound like that at all.
[narrator] Suddenly, the banging stops.
Christina decides to go on with her workout.
[banging]
- [banging] - [woman screams]
- [banging continues] - [woman continues screaming]
It sounded so...
distraught.
It sounded human, but I knew it couldn't be.
- [banging continues] - [woman continues screaming]
[screams]
[breathes heavily]
[dialing]
[guard] Hello. Security.
Hi, security.
- There's someone screaming in the basement. - [guard] Yeah?
I kept looking back over into that corner,
and it was just so hard to listen to.
[screams]
It just sounded so anguished.
And it's just upsetting to hear,
because I could feel sadness in the wailing,
and I just kept thinking, "Come on, hurry."
- [banging continues] - [woman continues screaming]
And then, as soon as he approached, it stopped.
When I saw the security guard coming, I felt such relief.
So, you say there's someone screaming down here?
There was, I...
It was coming from in there, but...
But for it to stop just before someone else
would be able to hear it...
I was stunned.
Well, where's it coming from?
I think it might be coming from in there.
I asked him if we could go and check the room attached to the gym.
[banging]
[woman screaming]
I will never forget that sound.
The banging and screaming, I will never forget it.
I hear it now, today.
[screams]
It's almost too much, just to stand there,
listening to it.
I just wanted to get out of there.
[banging continues]
But I could feel someone there.
I could feel sadness.
The security guard
starts talking about this story he heard.
Years ago, there was a sister, and she had TB or polio,
and so she had to be kept in isolation.
And she had to use an iron lung.
[woman screams]
An iron lung is like an old-fashioned ventilator.
So, people would be put in the iron lung,
and only their head would really be out.
She hated being by herself. She wanted company.
So what she used to do, he said, is she would bang
on the walls, and she would scream
for someone to come and visit her,
for someone to come and keep her company.
- [banging] - [wailing]
I think this nun needed a witness,
a witness to her anguish.
She had been in a state of isolation and pain
for so long,
she needed a human guide to come and show her
that she could be set free.
Someone that would acknowledge her loneliness
and her suffering so she could be set free,
so she can be put in a state of peace.
[crying]
[banging]
[Christina] All the hairs on the back of my neck
just went right up.
Let's get out of here.
Let's go.
That is exactly what that sound sounded like.
It sounded like someone who was just in...
mental pain,
and that is exactly what she would have been,
and that was all she could do,
was bang on the walls and scream.
I felt like it completed the circle.
It made sense.
And I was able to find out the background,
and in my heart I really know
that that is exactly what it was.
[narrator] To this day,
Christina continues to have a connection
to the afterlife.
[Christina] I've always had a strong feeling
whenever I'm doing after-death care
like they're right there, and they're watching.
[banging]
And it's a strong feeling.
We don't want to always have those energies
just piling up with us.
[screams]
[Kenney] About 10 years ago,
there was a hurricane that came through Vermont.
It did a lot of devastation
to a lot of small towns in the area.
One of the areas hit very hard
was the Waterbury State Complex,
which also was home of the Vermont State Hospital.
So, they had to evacuate that whole building,
and nobody was allowed back in the building for a while,
until they could figure out exactly what was going on,
how they're going to get the water cleared out,
and what next direction to go into.
[narrator] With the damaged hospital slated for demolition,
Kenney Irish is given an unnerving assignment.
[Kenney] I was working for a bottled water company.
They came to us and said, "We need you to come
to the Vermont State Hospital section
and remove every cooler that is in the building."
Nobody that ever worked for our company
had ever been in this actual building,
for the simple fact that the individuals
that were housed in there were criminally insane
and were psychotic.
And we were not allowed in for security reasons,
for safety reasons.
There were some stories about some horrible treatments
that had happened, and when you think back to it
being built and opened in 1890,
medicine was very different then.
It made it very uneasy for anybody
that had to go there to do their job.
The building was old and just desolate looking.
It had a feeling of just kind of dread around it.
It just seemed very dead.
I waited for the groundskeeper to show up.
[Kenney sighs]
- [groundskeeper] Kenney? - [Kenney] Whoa!
[Kenney sighs]
Aren't you going to show me inside?
- Show me around here? - Not my problem.
Good luck finding them,
there's no way I'm going in there.
Great.
[Kenney] We didn't know where the water coolers where,
because we weren't allowed in there originally.
It just felt really, really cold,
and there was just this dread
that was just like right there,
and it just made my stomach kind of turn a little bit.
[banging noise]
I kind of start hearing some banging, which was very unusual.
There shouldn't be anything in there right now
that should be making any type of banging
or clanging noises.
[man coughs]
[indistinct chatter]
Then I start hearing something that kind of sounds like chatter,
like people kind of talking to each other.
[whispering voice] I don't want to go to...
...morning.
[Kenney] It's like a whispering,
but yet I couldn't make it out.
I was starting to get really nervous.
So, I'm just, you know, talking myself through it,
"saying, "All right, just go up there,
there's nobody in the building,
there's nothing going on.
You know, there's probably an animal in the building.
"There's an explanation for this."
[Kenney sighs]
Actually feeling some relief,
because I know that's one down,
and I know I've got a lot more to do,
but at least I'm on a roll now.
I'm dealing with, you know, some anxiety
from what I've heard and what I've known about the location.
The individuals were high-risk
to themselves as well as anybody else around them.
[creaking sound]
[bang]
At this point, I was very, very afraid.
I just wanted to get out of there.
As I go by one of the rooms,
I look, and out of the corner of my eye.
I see, it looks like a figure standing there.
[whispering voice] I don't want anything...
[screams]
I'm thinking, "Okay, that was a person.
I just saw a person standing there."
[heart beating]
The anxiety kind of kicked in and I felt some dread.
The only thing that was in the room was a bed that was there for a patient,
and there was like some straps hanging off of it,
which I'm assuming it was to hold them in place
if they needed to.
[Morgan Knudsen] Here we have a hospital ward
that was essentially filled with a lot of depression,
a lot of grief, a lot of anger,
and when we've got a situation like that,
often times the intelligence that is birthed
from that situation tends to be very aggressive
and tends to mirror the activity
and energy that was in the space prior.
[bang]
[Kenney] My mind started really racing
and trying to figure out what I just saw.
It was a solid figure, it looked like somebody
that was kind of hunched over.
I felt panic,
you know, a little bit hard to breathe.
Just wanted to get out of there.
[voice muttering]
[groaning sound]
[snarling]
[indistinct muttering]
I just keep going, I keep going,
almost through the door, I'm almost out of this building.
As I turned a corner, I came face to face
with something that scared me to death.
[breathes heavily]
I looked at him and I'm like, "What are you doing here?"
And he's like, "I'm an electrician,
I've got to meet the groundskeeper here."
You okay, buddy? I'm getting the hell out of here.
My whole train of thought was, "You know what?"
We don't need this equipment. This equipment can stay here.
If they demolish the building,
they can demolish the equipment.
"We're not going back."
I'm a Christian, and I do believe that,
you know, there's a spirit realm out there,
and that there's definitely certain aspects
that I don't necessarily understand.
Whatever it was, it was an experience
that I won't forget, and it's something
I'll be taking with me for a long time.
[theme music playing]