Haunted Florida: The Sunland Hospital System

by Victoria A. Lawrence

  

      The guilty fascination with abandoned hospitals is prevalent among ghost hunting shows, horror movies and teenagers without supervision. Go to any school and there will be one kid who knows “the story” about that derelict sanitarium over the hill. It usually involved a spirit of a patient who was brutally tortured by sadistic doctors until succumbing to death. This patient still roams the grounds, looking to capture the soul of unwitting juveniles, just daring them to come at night, alone.

      Orlando, Florida has its haunted hospital stories too. There was more than one creepy infirmary in the city, but the most notorious would have to be the infamous Sunland Hospital. Unbeknownst to many children who tell the tale, there is actually more than one Sunland; it was a chain of hospitals in Florida originally named the W.T. Edwards Tuberculosis Hospitals. The first opened in 1952. They all looked similar; white, five stories high with fewer storied longer buildings branching off the main one, and many windows to facilitate the movement of air, thought, at the time, to be of paramount importance in the treatment of TB. 

      Advances in treating tuberculosis diminished the need for such facilities and in 1968, the hospitals would be taken over by the state, revamped as the Sunland Mental Hospitals. The Sunland hospital in Orlando, the main facility, would be the only hospital that did not share the W.T. Edwards origin. The administrators had the best intentions for the facilities from the start. Mostly occupied by children, the hospitals had playgrounds, picnic areas, accessible swimming pools, gaming areas and frequent visits from special guests, such as the state's governor and Woodsy the Owl. Many of the children were active members in the boy scouts.   

      By the end of the 1970s, many state run facilities found themselves in a difficult situation. Federal funding that assisted state run programs diminished with each administration. Overpopulated and understaffed, hospitals like Sunland quickly became the subject of scandals and horror stories. By 1983, all the Sunland Centers were shut down. While the minors were sent to foster homes, a schoolyard legend states that many of the patients, the less needy and over the age of 18, were released out into the streets. The wards would fall into disrepair, tempting the listeners of ghost stories to explore the ruins. 

Visitors to this location have reported apparitions, orbs and the sounds of voices and crying. At the Orlando location one night, I heard sounds that could be children crying or cats screaming, although it went on continuously the entire time I was there like a banshee coming from trees (note to law enforcers, I worked for the county at the time and had a legitimate reason for being there). Some amateur investigators report seeing solemn faces of children in the windows of the few surviving buildings, intelligent and interactive apparitions of children running on the grounds, or of hearing objects move and seeing locked doors opening and closing inexplicably. Both the websites Ghost Report and author Greg Jenkins (Pineapple Press) note reports of the faint scent of  roses in the playground area. I will admit that while I was there, I did not stop and take the time to smell the roses. 

Photo of the red brick building by Victoria A. Lawrence. 2009.

      Another schoolyard legend has it that one intrepid explorer at the Orlando site fell down an elevator shaft at one hospital and died. The dying part was embellished, but in July of 1997, the Orlando Sentinel reports that while playing “hide and seek” with friends, 23 year old Keith Murdock did fall down a shaft and severely injured himself. Keith’s friends left him there in fear of authorities. It would take hours for anyone to find him in the bottom of that shaft. Suffering from several broken bones, including a fractured skull and spinal injuries, he would have to be airlifted out of Sunland to a working hospital. One could only imagine what Keith thought, laying there for hours, abandoned, in the bottom of that dank elevator shaft in the pitch of night. Or what he saw.

      The fall provided fodder for those arguing for the razing of the hospital. Within the next decade, the once gleaming white buildings turned urban legend womb would be demolished. Any traces of the Tallahassee buildings are gone, replaced by apartment buildings. A few of the administration buildings in Orlando still exist and there is now a public park at the original, albeit creepy, Orlando address: 2100 All Childrens Way, Orlando, Florida, 32818. 

      The public park closes at sundown and thrill seekers are not welcome anytime of the day. A note of warning, a few of the surrounding populace lend credence to the legend that many mental patients were simply released into the area. Take care when visiting the Orlando facility and do not go alone.

Photo 1: Florida State Tuberculosis Sanitarium, Orlando, circa 1939, courtesy Florida state archives

Photo 2: View of Governor Claude Kirk visiting a child at Sunland Hospital, Tallahassee, FL, 1968, courtesy Florida state archives

Photo 3: Woodsy the Owl at Sunland Hospital, Tallahassee, FL, courtesy Florida state archives
Photo 4: By me (VAKL) back in 2009.