Walson hospital at Fort Dix

[caribbean]

Hello,

I will add few facts below:

• Walson Army Hospital started on March 15, 1960
  
• Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker dedicated the $10.5 million hospital
  
• Secretary Brucker had been instrumental in securing funding for medical facilities
  
• Mrs. Walson, widow of Brigadier General Walson, unveiled the plaque at the ceremony
  
• 13 acre site
  
• 327,000 square feet floor area
  
• two 9-story ward wings and a 9-story service wing
  
• 500-bed hospital can be expanded to 1,000 beds
  
• 700 truckloads of equipment were moved to the new hospital
  
• New Jersey Avenue and West Third Street
  
• Medicines and messages were whisked to all floors through pneumatic tubes
  
• Accommodations for patients included private, two, three, and four-bed rooms and 8, 16, and 24-bed wards
  
• Steam for winter heating and cool air for summer air conditioning was piped through the building from boiler and refrigeration houses on the hospital grounds
  
• Surgical facilities included eight fully equipped operating rooms.
  
• X-ray, dental, eye-ear-nose-throat, childcare, neuro-psychiatric, and therapy clinics
  
• An emergency operating room was located near the ambulance entrance.
  
• October 1966, the expanded residency program included four Army doctors in the one-year Pre-Specialty Surgery Residency, four in the two-year General Practice Residency and three in the nine-month Preventive Medicine Residency Program
  
• nurses quarters were completed in 1963
  
• June 1965, a $1.3 million construction program began on a two-story addition for clinics and a one-story Air Evacuation Section
  
• The two-story addition, which increased medical facilities by 32,000 square feet, was occupied on June 22, 1966, and contained a pediatric clinic, obstetrics and gynecology clinic, a neuro-psychiatric clinic, a dental clinic, a preventive medicine department, a physical examination section, and a pharmacy.
  
• After the clinics moved into the new addition, the builders returned to expand the areas vacated by some of the clinics and modify activities remaining on the first floor
  
• 150-bed Air Evacuation Center was a joint operation involving Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base. It became operational in May 1966
  
• Specialized clinics included dermatology, gastroenterology, internal medicine, obstetrics, cardiology, radiology, gynecology, orthopedics, urology, neurology, psychiatry, pediatrics, eye-ear-nose and throat, surgery, preventive medicine, anesthesiology, and veterinary medicine
  
• 1992, at the recommendation of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC), Walson Army Hospital was transferred to the Air Force (McGuire Air Force Base) and was renamed Walson Air Force Hospital
  
• 30 April 2001, Walson Hospital closed
  

There weere two major incidents:

1. 1976 swine flu outbreak
   
2. Bomarc Missile accident June 7, 1960
   

If the Nuclear incident with Bomarc missiles was located at 40°2'1"N 74°26'28"W

I expect that swine flu happned at the hospital? Is that the reason why the basement is filled with concrete?

Links http://www.dtic.mil/.../u2/a261304.pdf

http://www.dtic.mil/.../u2/a170058.pdf

http://www.dtic.mil/.../u2/a330745.pdf

http://www.dtic.mil/...oc?AD=ADA203602

Edited January 18, 2013 by caribbean

[folsomhunter1254]

Well,

New to the site and only live a few minutes from the hospital...it is being surrounded by fencing and is scheduled for demolition soon. If you want to get in there, do it now....

[Stubbly_Dooright]

Love the pictures you posted Caribbean. Brings back memories. Found out I was pregnant with my son in that hospital.

FolsomHunter, you must live in the Fort Dix housing then? Have you had any experiences there or experienced anything in the hospital? If you past the hospital at night, is the third and forth or forth and fifth floors still have their window shudders up with all the lights inexplicably on?

[karkev]

bump! I just read some of the more "recent" replies. thanks, ya'll. Dix was an odd place and maybe bore some spiritual? spectral? emotional? residue from almost eighty years of men going to and returning from war. someone a few pages back mentioned a "negro" area on post. I think that section had been turned into a driver's training course by the time of my arrival there in 1989 but I remember being made aware of it during my stint though I had forgotten about it until re-reading this thread!

[Stubbly_Dooright]

Is Walson Hospital still there? Someone mentioned it being slated for demolition. I wonder if anyone living there now, Dix and Mcguire, are having experiences and where.

[RegalBeagle]

Wowzers! I stumbled upon this thread while I was random searching Fort Dix/Walson and I got more than I bargained for! I used to be stationed at Walson from 1990-1994,and I never knew the dark history of that place. Reading the postings here gave me the heebejeebees to the 10th power! I used to work on the 3rd floor, which at that time was a Med/Surg Floor, then I moved to the Recovery Room or PACU.I used to hang out on the psychiatric floor because some of my buddies worked there and we could shoot pool up there. I am guessing me and my crew were not aware of the history because either we were drunk out of our minds or chasing women. If something out of the ordinary occurred ,it was probably blown off due to alcohol consumption. Several of us met back up in 2007 and posed for pics outside the hospital. I wish we had known this information back then, and we could've staked out Garden Terrance to see the apparition, and then the hospital to see if anything unusual would happen. Thanks for posting and keep those of us informed who do not live as close to what else occurs recently!

[RegalBeagle]

<p>Wowzers! I stumbled upon this thread while I was random searching Fort Dix/Walson and I got more than I bargained for! I used to be stationed at Walson from 1990-1994,and I never knew the dark history of that place. Reading the postings here gave me the heebejeebees to the 10th power! I used to work on the 3rd floor, which at that time was a Med/Surg Floor, then I moved to the Recovery Room or PACU.I used to hang out on the psychiatric floor because some of my buddies worked there and we could shoot pool up there. I am guessing me and my crew were not aware of the history because either we were drunk out of our minds or chasing women. If something out of the ordinary occurred ,it was probably blown off due to alcohol consumption. Several of us met back up in 2007 and posed for pics outside the hospital. I wish we had known this information back then, and we could've staked out Garden Terrance to see the apparition, and then the hospital to

[Stubbly_Dooright]

Wowzers! I stumbled upon this thread while I was random searching Fort Dix/Walson and I got more than I bargained for! I used to be stationed at Walson from 1990-1994,and I never knew the dark history of that place. Reading the postings here gave me the heebejeebees to the 10th power! I used to work on the 3rd floor, which at that time was a Med/Surg Floor, then I moved to the Recovery Room or PACU.I used to hang out on the psychiatric floor because some of my buddies worked there and we could shoot pool up there. I am guessing me and my crew were not aware of the history because either we were drunk out of our minds or chasing women. If something out of the ordinary occurred ,it was probably blown off due to alcohol consumption. Several of us met back up in 2007 and posed for pics outside the hospital. I wish we had known this information back then, and we could've staked out Garden Terrance to see the apparition, and then the hospital to see if anything unusual would happen. Thanks for posting and keep those of us informed who do not live as close to what else occurs recently!

Man! I wish you did. I'm not getting any more info on it, in my searches these days. Now this is an update for me, My husband and I have been back to the base in the last year. He's retired, and we stay at the base when we head down to visit in the south. We actually toured McGuire, including the housing there last fall. Drove past what was the area we lived in one house for seven years at the time. It's now a parking lot. Weird seeing a place that was home for a good amount of time, and now it's not there anymore. Not even to rebuild. I have had a good amount of experiences in that house and wonder what is happening now.

But for all of our driving down memory lane there, other than visit the BX, we didn't explore Fort Dix and I don't remember if I have glanced toward Walson to see if the building is still standing. So, I still don't know if it was demolished.

[RegalBeagle]

Man! I wish you did. I'm not getting any more info on it, in my searches these days. Now this is an update for me, My husband and I have been back to the base in the last year. He's retired, and we stay at the base when we head down to visit in the south. We actually toured McGuire, including the housing there last fall. Drove past what was the area we lived in one house for seven years at the time. It's now a parking lot. Weird seeing a place that was home for a good amount of time, and now it's not there anymore. Not even to rebuild. I have had a good amount of experiences in that house and wonder what is happening now.

But for all of our driving down memory lane there, other than visit the BX, we didn't explore Fort Dix and I don't remember if I have glanced toward Walson to see if the building is still standing. So, I still don't know if it was demolished.

I used to visit friends that were stationed on McGuire AFB.In fact, we used to race from McGuire to Fort Dix since it was a long straight away stretch of road. We got lucky .The Airforce SP's ,Wrightstown PD nor the Army MP's ever caught us!I was chatting with some of my Army buddies and we are planning on going back to the Browns Mills area this year.Hopefully we will make plans to detour to Fort Dix and check out Walson if its still standing.I would love to speak to some of the Army MP's that have to patrol that area and to see if they have noticed anything.I will definitely keep everyone posted!

[Stubbly_Dooright]

I used to visit friends that were stationed on McGuire AFB.In fact, we used to race from McGuire to Fort Dix since it was a long straight away stretch of road. We got lucky .The Airforce SP's ,Wrightstown PD nor the Army MP's ever caught us!I was chatting with some of my Army buddies and we are planning on going back to the Browns Mills area this year.Hopefully we will make plans to detour to Fort Dix and check out Walson if its still standing.I would love to speak to some of the Army MP's that have to patrol that area and to see if they have noticed anything.I will definitely keep everyone posted!

Thank you! I wish I had thought about Walson when the hubby and I were there recently. Didn't even think of that, not even look in the distance to see if I could see the top of the building. At the time were living there, it was considered the tallest building, and I could see it. Didn't even bother to look in that direction when I had the chance, and I had the chance.

I have gone a search on the web recently to see if there was mention of it being demolished. I found sites of a stated demolish day around in 2013, but nothing about it already had been. Weird. Any satilite pictures are old. I know they are old, because the pictures still have the house we lived in still standing, and I actually were there in that housing area during last fall, staring at where our house stood, and all I was looking at was a parking lot. That was sad.

I am going to assume that the Fort Dix housing, where I saw the teen age boy, is still there, and wonder if anyone has had any recent visions there. *shrugs*

[RegalBeagle]

Thank you! I wish I had thought about Walson when the hubby and I were there recently. Didn't even think of that, not even look in the distance to see if I could see the top of the building. At the time were living there, it was considered the tallest building, and I could see it. Didn't even bother to look in that direction when I had the chance, and I had the chance.

I have gone a search on the web recently to see if there was mention of it being demolished. I found sites of a stated demolish day around in 2013, but nothing about it already had been. Weird. Any satilite pictures are old. I know they are old, because the pictures still have the house we lived in still standing, and I actually were there in that housing area during last fall, staring at where our house stood, and all I was looking at was a parking lot. That was sad.

I am going to assume that the Fort Dix housing, where I saw the teen age boy, is still there, and wonder if anyone has had any recent visions there. *shrugs*

One of my Army buddies and I were talking about this thread, and he recalled a patient jumping out of a window and killing himself while we were stationed there. I do recall that incident now, but it had slipped my mind. After that happened the windows were sealed shut to prevent further incidents like that from happening.I remember that before the General (Wurman ) banned smoking from inside of buildings back in 1990,there was a designated smoking area on either the 8th or 9th floor, where the smokers could go to burn one. That area was an unused wing of the hospital and was always really dark and cold. Not a very welcoming place if you went there alone. Its amazing how things come to mind when you think about it. When we were there in 2007,our old Army barracks was still standing, near the hospital but they had torn down the liquor store or Class Six store right before our arrival. One of my coworkers was murdered by her AF spouse during my years there 91992 or 1993). Not sure why .Some type of domestic quarrel. Her name was Johanna Johns and she worked in the Recovery Room with me. That does not have anything to do with the thread, but it does add to some of the morbid goings on that occurred in relation to the hospital. Going back in 2007 brought back many fond memories such as those you have experienced when going there, but I don't think mine will be so fond when I do return later this year. I will be looking at Walson a little bit differently and wondering what secrets are really still in that place.

[Stubbly_Dooright]

One of my Army buddies and I were talking about this thread, and he recalled a patient jumping out of a window and killing himself while we were stationed there. I do recall that incident now, but it had slipped my mind.

I remember hearing about that, when I lived there.

After that happened the windows were sealed shut to prevent further incidents like that from happening.I remember that before the General (Wurman ) banned smoking from inside of buildings back in 1990,there was a designated smoking area on either the 8th or 9th floor, where the smokers could go to burn one. That area was an unused wing of the hospital and was always really dark and cold. Not a very welcoming place if you went there alone. Its amazing how things come to mind when you think about it. When we were there in 2007,our old Army barracks was still standing, near the hospital but they had torn down the liquor store or Class Six store right before our arrival. One of my coworkers was murdered by her AF spouse during my years there 91992 or 1993). Not sure why .Some type of domestic quarrel. Her name was Johanna Johns and she worked in the Recovery Room with me. That does not have anything to do with the thread, but it does add to some of the morbid goings on that occurred in relation to the hospital.

I am not surprised at hearing situations like this. I guess things like this happen everywhere, but I heard way too many stories myself there. A co-worker of mine telling me, when he was a crime photographer, about finding the body of a boy, hung, and to find out it was a child abuse murder. That took my heart away. The story of the family was really heartbreaking. I even had to deal with my friend and neighbor's husband who was a big.......................... well I digress. I guess it's no wonder so many residual happenings occur there. *shrugs*

Going back in 2007 brought back many fond memories such as those you have experienced when going there, but I don't think mine will be so fond when I do return later this year. I will be looking at Walson a little bit differently and wondering what secrets are really still in that place.

From what I understand, there are a lot. There was a reputation, I kept hearing over and over about it, when it was still open. I have a tale myself dealing with me as a patient. Makes me wonder of the rumor the basement being filled with cement, I have read and heard.

[Upallnight]

As of August 2015 the hospital is still standing. I haven't seen any demolition work being done in the 3 years I have lived here. However the base Facebook page just posted that demolition has resumed.

[Stubbly_Dooright]

As of August 2015 the hospital is still standing. I haven't seen any demolition work being done in the 3 years I have lived here. However the base Facebook page just posted that demolition has resumed.

Hey, thanks for the update, Upallnight! Wow, I wonder why they hadn't yet, but keep saying they are. I wonder, if anyone recently had any experiences.

[karkev]

glad to see this thread is still alive! thanks everyone for sharing! I thought I would add a picture of myself from that era, specifically January of 1990. Happy Halloween!!!

[NATEDOG00]

The hospital is still up, I'm here for Army training. It looks like they are slowly starting to demo the building though. I have photos, but it wouldn't let me post them.

Edited February 25, 2016 by NATEDOG00

[cx4storm]

http://bit.ly/1QyNvBS

http://www.jointbasemdl.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123472673

[Stubbly_Dooright]

http://bit.ly/1QyNvBS

http://www.jointbase...sp?id=123472673

https://www.facebook...01095903&type=3

Thank you for this, cx4!

The pictures in the last facebook link. wow! I'm assuming, that maybe the whole building is down now? It felt a bit weird, seeing the empty corridors. It was kind of spooky looking at the hallways, and remember, I use to roam them at certain points in time. I recognized one of the big rooms, as possibly being the waiting area, where you check in, where the pharmacy window was, and such. I still have that memory stuck with me.

I wonder though, I wonder how that area is going be now, now that the building is gone. If the building is gone now. Or just the husk is still standing. I even entertain the thought that maybe the fifth and sixth floor ( where I saw all the lights on that floor being on one night, while passing by the empty hospital ) if they would still be on.

[Rhondas]

I lived in the hospital from 1990-1991 Worked in pretty much every department.  I also had 4 ankle surgeries. The only thing I got was an infection in my ankle. All the other stories  is blaaa. If you want to say it happened,  prob did on your head.  I did pretty much everything and in charge of the female barracks there as an acting Sgt.  Nope. Just some girls who's lockers stank,  and put on detail. . 

[StaceyPacuta]

Wow this is very interesting. I was born at Walson on Nov 4, 1966. I’m glad I was born before the mortality rate of over 60% began. 

[Richard Hurtz]

They finally knocked that **** hole down to the ground completely and what might have been a site for unexplained mysteries is no more. You might see an occasional ground hog banging another one on the  ground were it once stood but that's about it. 

Edited July 25, 2018 by Richard Hurtz

[caribbean]

Oh no! 

[Stubbly_Dooright]

On 10/24/2017 at 11:53 AM, StaceyPacuta said:

Wow this is very interesting. I was born at Walson on Nov 4, 1966. I’m glad I was born before the mortality rate of over 60% began. 

When my husband was stationed there, and we lived in FCN housing from 1995-2004, I have heard so many disturbing stories about that hospital. There was one time, when it was opened, a friend of ours felt frustrated about a co-worker who was misdiagnosed there, and then having to take him to Walter Reed hostpical, because the patient got worse.   

If I remember correctly, Wilson was the second hospital there. I understand there was one standing there nearby on Fort Dix, that was torn down while I was there. A friend I worked with there, happened to be born in that hospital. They were like those trailer type shacks in desert tan colors. 

I’m surprised Wilson hadn’t been torn down while we were there, considering they had built the brand new medical complex behind the commissary. Though, when it was open, and I had to go to the OB/gym clinic to find out I was pregnant with my second kid, I couldn’t stay there, but go off base to a civilian doctor’s clinic for the rest of the pregnancy, because of all the reported problems the maternity section has had. (Well, from what I remember being told and such. But yeah, me going off base, I do remember.  ) 

Whether it was haunted or not, just the situation itself, of the hospital, seemed disturbing.     

 

[Minimalists]

Weird this should pop up..I was on Ft Dix in the early Eighties..Was that hospital in operation then? It's been so so long ago...All I ever saw was a TMC. For you non Army brats that stands for Troop Medical Clinic.

[Curtis A. Scaglione SFC]

I was assigned to Walson Army Hospital for 6 years (1985 - 1991) and pulled CQ many times. One night while making my rounds of the perimeter of the hospital and supporting buildings, I looked up at the hospital to observe a blue orb in one of windows on the fifth floor. That floor during the period was not being used so I rushed into the hospital and made my way to the floor. There was nothing there. The electricity was turned off. I made a complete search of the floor and found no one. I know what I saw was not a reflection from some other source. 

Later I spoke with other sergeants that indicated that they had seen blue lights up there to.

I have been asked about the ninth floor and whether or not it was haunted. The ninth floor was Human Resources on one wing and Medical Holding on the other. I can say without a doubt Human Resource was not haunted nothing unusual ever happened. Medical Holding was usually very quiet.