#haunted hospital

Glenn Dale Hospital

Glenn Dale Hospital was built in 1934 to serve as a tuberculosis sanitarium. Sitting on 210 acres in Prince Georges County, Maryland has stood abandoned since 1982. When it was closed permanently due to concerns about the copious amounts of asbestos used in the construction.

The main campus of Glenn Dale consists of a Children’s hospital building and main hospital building, which are connected by a series of underground tunnels and walkways. Each of these buildings has its own morgue and both structures are close to Glenn Dale Road, which bisects the estate and makes the buildings easy fodder for local trespassers who want to match wits with the Washington, D.C Park Police, who routinely patrol the area.

Exploration of the Glenn Dale Hospital grounds is a treacherous experience and not only because the place is closed and trespassers are not suffered lightly. The portions of the buildings that are above ground are in severe disrepair, seeing that they have stood abandoned since 1982. Broken glass litters the ground, roofs and walls are collapsing under their own weight. Rusted metal and other debris litters the campus because of all of the unused hospital detritus that was left behind when the place shut down. The basement and tunnels are in the same condition but with the added hazard of standing water, which rises up to three feet in some places.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of exploration is the same aspect that led to the hospital’s closure, large amounts of asbestos. The few people who are allowed into Glenn Dale and this includes paranormal investigators who have gotten permission to visit always wear respirators because of the carcinogens in the air.

The haunted history of Glenn Dale Hospital is much like that of any other long-abandoned institution of similar size. After the tuberculosis epidemic faded, the hospital was repurposed to house the mentally ill. Out of this fact the legend became that the hospital was a home for the criminally insane, who were simply let loose to roam the grounds when the hospital closed. Legend has it that Glenn Dale Hospital had its own crematorium and that the odor of burning flesh still permeates the buildings. There is a smokestack on the hospital grounds but all evidence points to it only ever being used to burn refuse.

The few people who are lucky enough to explore the grounds find no lack of intriguing paranormal experiences. There are certainly the usual reports of shadow figures and unexplained sounds. The second floor of the general hospital building seems to be a hotbed of these types of activity, with reports of full-bodied apparitions in hospital gowns roaming the halls and disembodied voices either screaming or laughing maniacally. There have even been reports of a pack of ghost dogs roaming around the campus near the children’s hospital. Paranormal activity like this can certainly be found all over the Glenn Dale campus, it’s just that this particular floor seems more active than the rest.

There are a few local legends that concern haunting at the hospital that can’t be directly confirmed or denied, but they are interesting nonetheless. One of these stories concerns a patient who haunts the hospital wearing a straight jacket. He went insane having witnessed the murder of his wife and children during a home invasion. He was so wracked with guilt that he didn’t save his family that he broke into the pharmaceutical dispensary and killed himself by swallowing pills. It is this same guilt that supposedly binds his spirit to the hospital.

The second legend concerns an unnamed police officer who was called to investigate some vandalism that had occurred on the property. A while after he arrived, people in the vicinity reported hearing gunshots. When backup arrived, the officer was found in one of the patient rooms, staring blankly at a bare wall. He had emptied his gun into this wall, firing at something that no one would ever find. True or not, such stories are a vital part of the mystique of this haunted hospital.

Aries: Loads their bb gun with rock salt and pretends to be a Hunter; shoots spirits like a badass and thinks that they are everyone’s hero; after Sagittarius actually gets rid of all the spirits and really saves everyone; they decide to go help Virgo since they’ll believe that Aries was the real hero

Taurus: Took a nap in one of the hospital beds when they first arrived; they don’t believe in haunted hospitals and they just wanted the dare to be over with already; ends up sleeping through the entire haunting and doesn’t believe the others when they recap what happened; not sure whether to call the police about Gemini’s murder since they don’t know which of their friends did it

Gemini: Making fun of the possibility of ghosts and pranking everyone in the group so that they all get scared; collapses on the floor and everyone thinks that they are faking it; Virgo touches them and finds real blood gushing out of their back; the haunting has begun and everyone panics

Cancer: Has intensified connections with the spirits and actually feels their anger and confusion; some of them not even realizing that they are dead; torn between running away from it all and trying to help them get to the other side; becomes a psychic medium after the experience

Leo: Not ready to die; running around the hospital with syringes and scalpels in their hands and screaming at the top of their lungs, thinking that it would help them against the spirits; ends up getting tossed against a wall by a spiteful spirit and losing their useless weapons

Virgo: White as a sheet (except for their hands which are covered in Gemini’s blood); is too anxious to think of anything, ends up holing themselves up inside one of the bathrooms and fainting on the floor; when they come to again, Aries is helping them walk outside and the haunting is over

Libra: Completely freaked out the moment they see Gemini on the floor; they don’t believe in irrational things like ghosts, so there must be a logical explanation like a killer on the loose; as soon as the first apparition appears, they take off screaming at the top of their lungs

Scorpio: Powerful enough to get the ghosts to stop throwing things around the room and listen to them; uses a spell that they heard Bobby use one time on Supernatural (they of course looked it up after the episode and found that it was a real spell); binds one of the ghosts in place and makes him answer the burning questions that they have been dying to know

Sagittarius: Has watched Supernatural enough times to know what they need to do to get everyone out safe; finds salt in the kitchen and already had lighter fluid on them (don’t ask); follows Aquarius and Pisces and salts and burns all of the bones; Aquarius and Pisces are close to tears when they see the ghosts catch on fire and disappear

Capricorn: Got crept up on by a little girl’s ghost that walked right through them; acquired a migraine that won’t go away; walking around with an iron stethoscope they found in one of the doctor’s offices so that they can whoosh away any ghosts that come near them; after all, it usually works for Sam and Dean

Aquarius: Tries to connect with the angry spirits to ask them why they are haunting the hospital; finds out that the hospital used to be an asylum where patients were unspeakably tortured and experimented on until they died; the humanitarian inside of them hurts for the spirits and promises to make what happened to them known if they let everyone go

Pisces: Helping Aquarius calm the spirits down; asks the spirits to show them the hidden areas where the torture used to take place so that they can find records and take pictures for proof; cries when they end up finding the remains of these people (some of them children) crammed into little crawlspaces 

-Deja