The Ghostly Tales of a Former Army Hospital

Welcome to a special Halloween episode of Health Science Radio. 

It opened in 1941 as “the last word in Army hospitals,” serving military families from World War II to Vietnam. Today, the Fitzsimons Building houses the administrative offices of CU Anschutz. It’s not uncommon for the community to ask, “Is the Fitzsimons building haunted?” Those who work in the bowels of the 480,000 square foot art deco building have chilling tales to tell. 

Transcript

Dan Dix began working as a plumber at the University of Colorado Anschutz more than 15 years ago. Today, he’s a facilities supervisor with Facilities Management. In his early years, he spent a lot of time in the Fitzsimons Building – the historic former Army hospital turned campus administrative offices.

One evening, back when Fitzsimons was called Building 500, Dix was on the fifth floor working on heating lines with his supervisor, Jimmy. He paused to inspect something. Jimmy had kept moving, and Dix could still hear his keys rattling nearby.

When he finished, Dix followed the sound of the keys toward the other side of the elevator bank. He kept hearing the keys and circled the elevators three times before realizing that Jimmy was a couple of hundred feet down the corridor, nearly out of earshot.

Dix was stunned. The keys had sounded so close. He hurried to catch up and told Jimmy what happened.

Jimmy smiled, gave Dix a knowing wink and said, “Welcome to Building 500.”

Who was Dix following? And where was he being led? All we can say for sure is that Dix isn’t the only person to have an eerie encounter in Fitzsimons.

Last fall, the campus community had a chance to ask questions in preparation for its inaugural history day. A common theme emerged, with many submitting the question: Is Fitzsimons haunted?

Anyone who has worked in the building long enough seems to be aware of the shadowy stories that float around its offices and creep through its bowels – dubbed “the crawlers.” The sound of babies crying has been reported on the second floor where maternity wards once bustled. Some say there have been strange sightings on the sixth floor where critically injured soldiers from World War II and Vietnam were treated. Others report seeing elevator doors open without being called and doors locking and unlocking – all on their own.

But then there are experiences from those who have spent time in the building’s inner workings. Facilities Management teams have their own stories to tell.

So, is Fitzsimons haunted? The following accounts of spine-tingling phenomena certainly tell a tale.

Kenneth Bosworth has been navigating the inner workings of Fitzsimons for 18 years. As facilities supervisor, he moves through the building with ease. But one place always gives him pause.

“I feel like I’m being watched,” he said, standing on the stage of Bushnell Auditorium, gazing up at the two rectangular openings that let light from the ninth-floor projector room onto the auditorium’s screen.

The projector room is only accessible via stairs, which are blocked by a heavy metal chain. Bosworth said he often gets a headache when entering the dense air of the projector room. The most unsettling part, however, is the metal catwalk outside the projector room. Bosworth has seen a shadowy figure moving along its length. Even when he’s technically alone on the ninth floor, he feels as though he has company.

The historical hospital building requires a veritable army to keep it in good working order. The facilities team at times hires contractors to help. Once, Dix hired a contractor to do some repair work after hours.

Dix set him up in the basement around 8 p.m. to get started on the work. Then Dix went back upstairs, asking the worker to call when the job was complete. But soon after he left him, the contractor came upstairs to give Dix a piece of his mind.

“He goes, ‘Hey, why do you keep coming downstairs and opening that door?’”

Dix was shocked. There was a door about 10 feet from where the man was working that led to an access space below the building.

“The guy thought I was messing with him. But I was nowhere near that door,” Dix said.

Building 500 strikes again.

Another area of the basement, known as “the crawlers” because of its low clearance, is also known for its mysteries. Once Bosworth and Dix were down in the basement together, and they saw a pair of legs, deep in the crawlers. They called out to the legs but received no answer.

It wasn’t Bosworth’s first time seeing someone in the basement. In his peripheral vision, he saw a man walk from the center of the building near the hospital’s incinerator into a space with no overhead lights that led to the crawlers. Once again, he called out and received no answer. He shined his flashlight down the direction he saw the man walk, but his light revealed no one in the space.

Leo Czyozanowski is a preventative maintenance technician with Facilities Management. His email signature says he works the “graveyard” shift – which, considering this story from before he was officially hired, feels fitting.

Czyozanowski first came to campus as a contractor through a janitorial service used by CU Anschutz. On the last night of his last shift as a contract custodian at CU Anschutz, Czyozanowski sat in the Fitzsimons basement. A blizzard howled outside. Eating a sandwich and staring at a mirror labeled “The Best State Employee,” he heard footsteps. It was nearly 1 a.m. He assumed it was his supervisor. And as he walked toward an area called “the fluids,” he heard a voice call out:

“I hear you’re looking for the incinerator.”

He turned to see a medium-sized man with silver-white hair.

“Take this,” the somber-looking man said, handing him a 90-degree metal elbow etched with “Incinerator 1962.”

When Czyozanowski looked up to respond, the man was gone.

“I checked everywhere – by the chillers, in the dirt basements, even the steam tunnel – but no one was there,” he said. The freight elevator still read “B,” and the main elevators weren’t running.

Thinking it was a prank, he called his two supervisors. They both answered, and they were both in different buildings. He was the only person from their team in Fitzsimons.

Later, he told the story to his dad, who had worked at Fitzsimons in the 1970s as a general’s aide, polishing marble floors. He’d also assisted the dour-looking man who tended to the basement incinerator.

“Medium-sized guy, silver hair, serious expression?” his dad asked.

Stunned, Czyozanowski nodded. His dad advised him to leave the pipe outside.

To this day, it sits in a bucket in Czyozanowski’s backyard.