Ghost Adventures – Tuolumne Hospital – S08E03

Zak and the team head out to Sonora, California to investigate the Tuolumne Hospital which is claimed to have plenty of paranormal activity. Sonora, is a former gold rush town and the Tuolumne hospital was set up shortly thereafter. So, does this hospital that recently closed in 2011 contain a lot of spirit energy? Zak certainly thinks so.

As they start their interviews, Zak gets a splitting headache that he attributes to feeling the residual pain of some sort of head trauma. When he goes outside, the pain seems to disappear. Kristy, a former employee has her own tale of feeling touched when she was working in the hospital. We also have Ed, the retired maintenance engineer who feels pretty comfortable with the spirits that linger in the hospital, so much so that’s he’s given the name George to one of the familiar entities. Ed doesn’t feel George is a hostile spirit, but he does like to play some pranks from time to time.

The guys capture some interesting evidence, with most of the attention on the Xbox Kinect footage. Billy set up a CPR mannequin on a hospital bed, with IV stand and other medical equipment around it. Oddly, the Kinect shows some soft of figure on the side of the bed, seemingly touching the CPR model and the IV stand. The Kinect represents people as wireframes and it looks like the right arm is moving all over the place. Obviously, we can’t see anything, but the Kinect detects something is in the room. Nick move the mannequin out of the way and tries the experiment on himself. After a while he feels something cold, then that wireframe figure appears again and Nick jumps off the bed holding this stomach and side as though he’s been hit.

I’m not sure what that proves, but you have to ask, what the heck was it? Is the Kinect sensor capable of picking up spirit energy? Was there really something there? Is there spirit energy still working as a doctor or nurse in the hospital? It doesn’t seem like this is a software glitch since, as Zak mentions, it can track Billy when he comes into the room and it didn’t do the same thing when Nick was laying down on the table. So I really have to wonder what we saw. And by the same token, was the energy trying to help or harm Nick?

Other evidence includes, in my opinion, some sub-par EVPs. They are nowhere near as clear as those we heard in the previous two episodes. When Zak asks what the figure tracked by the Kinect was doing, the reply is "help patient". But it follows this up with, "now get out". Odd for a nurse or doctor to try and help then tells everyone to get out. They also get and EVP of the word "George", the name Ed gave to the spirit he believes is there. Since that’s obviously not his real name, is it simply trying to identify itself by the name they already know?

Another piece of evidence is the monitor getting pushed over. While still in the hospital room, the EMF detector they left on the chest of the CPR model goes off, then there is a loud crash, which they find out is monitor that has fallen over. Supposedly it’s pretty sturdy, as most monitors are, so how did it fall over? They didn’t appear to "rig it up" with duct tape or anything, so did something really push it? Is the hospital staff getting pissed off at their game of pretending to be hurt or is there something a touch more vengeful in there? Or, did the monitor simply fall on it’s own with no otherworldly influence?

Finally, while Aaron is in the mental ward of the hospital, he get a recording of "please don’t help me". Again, this one is pretty jumbled, but it’s still an odd thing to say. Why would someone in that ward not want help? Or as with so many of these, is that not what was said?

While a hospital will always have a past filled with traumatic events, there is nothing about this one that stands out from any other. It’s not like they did weird experiments or had abusive staff. So why should it be haunted? Does the evidence suggest that it is? The EVPs they captured in this one don’t add to much for me. The Kinect is interesting, but who knows what we’ve got going on there. And again, way too many useless theatrics to try and make the location and the evidence more sinister than they really are.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Ghost Adventures – Return to Linda Vista Hospital – S06E05
• Ghost Adventures – Tooele Hospital – S04E26
• Ghost Adventures – Black Dahlia House – S12E01
• Ghost Adventures – Hotel Leger – S16E05
• Paranormal Lockdown – St. Ignatius Hospital – S02E04
• Ghost Adventures – Asylum 49 – S14E11
• Ghost Adventures – Linda Vista Hospital
• Ghost Adventures – Prospect Place
• Paranormal Lockdown – Shrewsbury Prison – S02E02
• Ghost Adventures – Kennedy Mine – S16E03