WOODWARD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
On May 27, 2005 the Eerie Oklahoma team, along with two guests from GHOULI, investigated the old Woodward Hospital in Woodward, Oklahoma. The hospital has been closed since around 1950 when a newer and more modern building was erected.
Woodward was the site of one of the biggest and widest tornadoes in Oklahoma history in 1947. There were over 100 lives lost and this tornado was what prompted the implementation of the tornado watch system in 1953 that has saved countless lives since.
As with any hospital, there is the possibility of haunting because of the loss of life and traumatic things that happen in hospitals. This particular hospital has had reports of red eyes in the windows, small children that disappear when approached, people looking out of the windows, etc. It is owned by a family that is not prone to giving into frivolous ghost stories. Since their time there, however, they have come to accept the strange occurrences that take place in the old building in their backyard and have done some investigations of their own, including collecting some EVP.
We arrived at around 9p,m. Scott was already on scene.
We sat with George and he explained what he has seen and heard, he also played some EVPs that were allegedly taken in the hospital.
We then did a walk through as a group to become familiar with the layout of the building.
There was no electricity as the hospital has been closed for many years. George was thoughtful enough to bring in an extension cord, lamp and table. We broke into teams of two and went to different areas of the building for sit downs.
While Tammy and Jennifer and Amy and Crisi were all upstairs on separate wings of the hospital. They both reported hearing noises like someone walking around at what would be point where the two wings met in the middle.
Susie and Kathy were on the main floor, believed to be the lobby and the ER ambulance bay. Tonya and George were also on the main floor and Scott and Tricia were in the basement.
We had several voice recorders and two video cameras, Kathy’s was on a tripod, stationary at the bottom of the main staircase. Susie’s was positioned on a small footlocker and was in the ER hallway.
At one point Kathy and Susie heard a noise and went to check it out, they were getting spikes on the EMF and as they turned to walk away, they heard a dull thud, witnessed a dumbwaiter door opening and as any good investigator would do, screamed and ran. Tonya and George were first on the scene. Tonya took the voice recorder and asked many questions. Scott took pictures, and they decided it was the wind that opened the door. The dumbwaiter runs from the second floor down to the basement, which had no door covering the opening. It was observed that when a large gust of wind would blow through the building, the door would react to the draft. There were numerous open doors and windows, especially in the basement that would account for the severity of the draft needed to open the door.
We took a break and changed locations.
Tonya and George witnessed a styro-foam cup sliding across the floor as they were sitting in the basement. There was a breeze; however, the leaves around the cup did not move at the time of the cup sliding. The occurrence is on audio tape, but was not captured on video.
We tried to do a dowsing rod session in the morgue but were unable to get any clear responses.
We packed up and thanked George for letting us investigate. We then left about 2am.
Kathy’s camera picked up something odd. About 30 minutes into it there are two thuds and then this double string looking thing whizzes by the camera.
The possibility of it being a spider web or cob web blowing past was considered, but it moves very quickly and upon rewinding it, it is not visible on the screen. This happened about 10 minutes before the dumbwaiter incident. No one had been down the hall and they didn't hear the thumps. Tammy and Jennifer were stationed at the other end of the hall and heard noises in this area. In fact, it was so clear that someone was there that Tammy went to the hall and called out and looked around, but there was nothing there.
Tammy took two strange photos upon arriving at the hospital. The first one has a big blur in it and there was nothing in that spot when she took the photo. In the second one, there is a bright shiny object and upon inspection, there was nothing to explain that either - it's the one at the top of the page. Here's the one with the blur.
There was a lot of outside noise and interference, so this investigation did not yield a lot of usable evidence. The building had at least three open exterior doors and numerous broken windows, which allowed the consistently high winds to rush through the building creating excessive noise, particularly in the basement. Complicating the matter was the local curiosity, which produced a great deal of noise outside the hospital that was easily heard through the numerous openings. At one point, Scott asked several teenagers who had entered during the first sit down session to leave the building for the time being. We gave up on trying to collect any valid EVP because of the excess noise. We would like to go back when it could be quieter and more conducive to an investigation.