On any given day of the year, you can walk inside Stevens Hall and find nursing students perfecting their skill and technique, but last Friday, anyone who walked in saw nothing but unadulterated terror.
The Student Nursing Association (SNA) hosted their annual Haunted Hospital with this year’s theme as “Illness Outbreak.” Nursing students didn’t hold back as they dressed up in hospital gowns, scrubs, masks and gory makeup, yelling and screaming at the passing guests in the building to heighten the fright.
Before people went in the hospital, tour guides explained to the guests why Stevens Hall is haunted. It all started with a woman named Edith Stevens, who the building is named after. While she was performing experiments, one went terribly wrong. The failed experiment caught on fire and the flames engulfed her as she ran out on the Wheeler Lawn. She was admitted into Southside Hospital where she was treated for the burns she had suffered. Stevens died on Halloween night in 1945. Since then, students have claimed to see sightings of Stevens through the third floor window of the building.
As groups walked up the staircase to get to the main event, the tour guides would drop them off in a waiting room where a nurse sat asking what symptoms the group had. While sitting in the waiting room, you could hear the clanking of operating instruments and screaming behind a makeshift wall.
Throughout the maze, groups witnessed a doctor’s office, an operating room, a psychiatric facility and a morgue. All of the actors in the theme were very effective within their acts and going through the exhibit was a great way to kick off the Halloween season.
The event had a great turnout and SNA will be hosting another event coming up on November 2nd for a Chick-Fil-A spirit night.
