Disembodied voices, tall shadowy figures, crying babies, full body apparitions and several unexplainable sights and sounds is what the staff at the Old South Pittsburgh Hospital experience every day.
Now known as the Old South Pittsburgh Hospital Paranormal Research Center, current owner Ronnie Dee said the hospital had a history of being haunted long before he bought it.
“I’ve been a paranormal investigator for about 25 years now,” he said adding he started with a small group when he lived in Chicago. “The hospital is a location that I investigated prior to ownership.”
The team at Old South Pittsburgh Hospital keeps a list of the known spirits and apparitions that haunt the building. Spirits include former doctors, patients, and even couple of children. In all the staff believe they have 40-50 active, “residents,” that have communicated with paranormal investigators and have made their presence known on a regular basis.
It was a different way of life, back in 1959 when the hospital opened to serve the bustling community of South Pittsburgh. Back then the medical and nursing staff were completely invested in designing, building the 68,000 square foot medical facility, and practically living their entire lives inside its wall caring for the sick and needy.
“It was a full medical facility,” Dee said. “They did everything from birthing babies to X-rays, emergencies, everything.”
He said it was normal for the medical staff to work 16-18 hours a day, take a quick nap, and get right back to work. It likely explains why these spirits tend to linger around after death.
“You’ve got all that energy of people who spent their lives in that building helping the general population be healthy,” he said. “That energy is trapped in there. They were the backbone of the community. This is their happy place, their accomplishments, their legacy and I think a lot of them kind of stick around to see that legacy keep going.”
The hospital closed in 1998, and the building was purchased by a private owner and used primarily for storage.
“That is when they realized it had paranormal activity,” Dee said. Looking for answers, the owner opened it up to other paranormal investigators. Dee was among those who investigated the building.
“South Pittsburgh hospital is the first hospital where I saw a full-body apparition,” Dee said. “It made me fall in love with the building.”
His paranormal experiences are what made him decide to buy the hospital in 2018. “It’s almost like an addiction,” he said. “You get a little taste of something, and you want to see more, and South Pittsburgh always seems to give you more.”
Dee said his staff was able to speak with former caregivers, nurses, and medical staff who said the hospital had plenty of weird stuff happening even when it was in full operation.
“A lot of them had experiences in the building with doors opening and closing, babies crying, disembodied voices, pretty much the whole paranormal gamut of cool things,” Dee said.
He is preserving the historical legacy of the hospital, while allowing others to explore its paranormal realm.
Dee said he believes most hospitals are likely haunted, filled with trapped energy from the medical staff as well as from the patients who died from sickness and tragedies.
“I personally think hospitals are the most haunted of all locations,” he said. “A hospital is the only building in the world that has everything in it from birth to death and everything in between.”
The Old South Pittsburgh Hospital offers the public opportunities to experience the paranormal with daytime and nighttime public tours. Private tours and investigations are available by special request.
“Our building is active 24/7 - 365 days a week,” Dee said. “We do day tours, and it is every bit as active as it is at night. I will put it against any location out there in terms of it being active, I think it is in the top 10 across the nation.”
Tours are limited in the number of participants and fill up quickly. They just announced a tour happening on Halloween night. Book now as it is likely to sell out quickly.
For more information and to book your next tour, visit: https://osphprc.com/