Author's books tell of paranormal occurrences at Broughton Hospital

On the weekends, Margaret Langley sells wind chimes, homemade artwork, and steampunk-inspired journals at Jim’s Indoor Flea Market in Valdese. 

Several years ago, she accumulated paranormal stories in Morganton’s Broughton Hospital.

Langley worked as an R.N. at Broughton for years. Through that experience, she has accumulated several paranormal and historical stories from the century-old hospital, outlined in her “Broughton Horror Stories” series. 

She started at Broughton in 1994 and said that Broughton offered her a $1,000 loan that would be forgiven if she worked at the hospital for a year.

During her first year, she experienced her first encounter with the paranormal. 

Langley had no reason to believe anything was amiss in the hospital. This changed one night when she was snowed in and had to spend a night in the nurses' dorms, as the snow wouldn't permit her to drive to her house.

Exhausted, she found an open bed and immediately fell asleep without a second thought. However, later that night, she woke up terrified at an unknown hour of the night with a paralyzing fear.

“I sat straight up, terrified.” She knew that she couldn’t stay there, but the weather wouldn’t permit her to leave. 

With no real reason to feel this fear and no previous knowledge of any paranormal activity, she still does not know what drove her to scare her from bed. First thing in the morning, as soon as permissible, she left for home.

This was the first of many experiences of the paranormal that she and others experienced in her years at the hospital. 

Langley attributes some of the paranormal to the conditions of years past in the hospital. While Broughton holds state-of-the-art facilities in its new facilities, historically there have been rumors of abuse scandals against the patients. 

She said “There’s been a lot of turmoil” in the history of the hospital that could have left unsavory spirits.

Along with this first initial event, Langley had more encounters through her years working at the hospital. Working in the geriatrics department, she had finished feeding the patients and walked out into a hallway, where she encountered a strange mist floating in the air. She said there were no showers in use and no other logical explanation for what she saw.

She turned to another nurse and asked what caused the mist, and what it was.

All she heard in return was “Well Margaret, it just must be a ghost.”

The paranormal, in the eyes of many of the hospital’s workers, was a casual expectation. They were aware of the ways that the hospital creaked, that locked-up rooms made noises, and strange apparatuses in the hallways; all just part of the job at Broughton.

On the popular topic of the mysterious tunnels beneath Broughton, Langley said that they were not often in use by the time she began work there. 

However, on one of her few trips down there, she said she saw rooms that looked like cells and that could have held subterranean asylum residents. Some rumors suggest that some patients were locked down there if they were difficult, but they were never proven.

The current hospital adheres to the current American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, but through the hospital's 100+ years of work, it has had its share of scandals.

These stories are only some of the many she has pulled together in her series, “Haunted Broughton.” She has finished three in the series already and is currently working on a fourth. The books cover years of Broughton stories, as well as some stories about surrounding asylums in her third book, “History and Horror.”

For those who want to share their own experiences, you can send them to Langley at whispersoftrueghoststoriesbh@gmail.com. To find out more about her books, she can be found at Jim’s Indoor Flea Market in Valdese on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday each week. They also can be ordered through Adventure Bound Books and Thornwell Books.