O.k....most people that know me know me to be a rational and logical person not prone to hype or the sensational. Nor am I infatuated with the supernatural as many JW's/ex-JW's are/were. With that said, let me relate what happened to me at work last night.
On Saturday night, we had four bad burns come in. They had a gas explosion at their apartment. The dad had gone outside to check the gas meter because they thought they smelled gas. While he was outside, the apartment ignited and sent his pregnant wife, four year old daughter, his mother and his father to the hospital VERY badly burned. With four of us there, we each took one of the patient's. I took the 4 year old. She was badly burned but lucid when she came in. When we asked her where it hurt she said "It hurts everywhere". Anyway, we finally shipped them to John Sealy in Galveston. At the time we doubted any of them would make it very long.
So, last night, I'm in ICU. There is a stairwell in the middle of the unit that goes down to the parking area for the on-call physicians. When they have to come in in the middle of the night, we'll go down to the door that opens to the outside to put a towel in the door so that it stays open for them. One of the pulmonary docs was coming in around 1:30, so I took a towel and went to go stick it in the door. As you walk out the door to the stairwell, there's a small hallway before you actually get to the stairs. When I turned the corner to go down the stairs, I saw a small child standing in the landing, back turned to me, midway between the 1st and 2nd floors. There are only two ways into that stairwell, and both are locked. So as I'm walking down the stairs I say "How did you get in here?" simply thinking that somehow this kid got lost and was probably scared. The 'child' turned around and I stopped dead in my tracks. It was the little girl from Sat night and she said "I just wanted to tell you that it doesn't hurt anymore" and DISAPPEARED!!! At that same instant, the stairwell which is usually hot and humid turned ice cold - like I'd stepped into a deep freeze. Let me tell you, I was REALLY FREAKED OUT!! I turned and, very quickly...lol, went back up the stairs, back into the unit and shared the incident. Two nurses walked into the stairwell and agreed that it was ice cold in there. Then, just as quickly, it went back to being hot and humid. So, I start making some phone calls and found out that she did indeed die after being shipped to John Sealy.
I've heard a number of stories about the hospital being 'haunted', but mostly blew them off. Uh.. NOT ANY MORE!!! At first I thought maybe I was just working too much and had finally cracked....lol. But I know what I saw and what I heard and let me tell ya....those docs are just going to have to go around and go through the hospital from now on cuz I'M NOT GOING DOWN THAT STAIRWELL ANYMORE.....