Читать книгу Gay & Lesbian Ghost Stories - Antonio Garcez - Страница 5

I’m originally from Santa Maria, California. I moved to Anchorage 12 years ago to live with my girlfriend, Rachel, in her family’s home of three generations. Rachel was also in the medical field and worked as a pediatrician in a different hospital than I did. We used to do quite a lot of outdoor activities before her untimely death. Rachel died of complications from hepatitis C. She contracted this disease from a deceased patient while conducting the autopsy. So I am left to manage alone on our property since her death two years ago.

I graduated from Keck School of Medicine of USC in Southern California with a degree as a surgical technologist (OR tech). My job at Alaska Regional Hospital requires me to assist within the operating room during various invasive surgical procedures, especially open-heart operations. Because I’ve been at this job for so many years, I’ve become very friendly with my fellow associates. I know it might sound corny, but we genuinely regard each other as extended family members. We rely on each other for emotional support when a patient we’re fond of dies while in our care.

My personal ghost story took place eight years ago in the hospital. We had an excellent female surgeon who worked at the hospital for just a few months. She died one Thanksgiving holiday in an auto accident while driving back home to Anchorage from the town of Dawson City. Somehow she drove her car off the road, first hitting a tree and then coming to a stop in a shallow water channel. She sustained fatal injuries to both her skull and spine and was pronounced dead at the scene.

It was not long after her funeral that a few staff began to talk among themselves about seeing the doctor’s shadow image standing at doorways, and at one time it was even spotted by Arnold, our anesthesiologist, standing against a wall in the operating room!

Arnold himself once told me that during an operating procedure while he was adjusting the concentration of anesthetic vapor isoflurane for a patient, an unexpected movement caught his attention. He looked to see what moved and spotted the image of the dead doctor standing about four feet away from the patient on the operating table.

He told me that he happened to glance about the room and noticed two other staff also captivated by the same paranormal image. Arnold said, “We elbowed each other to look in the direction of the ghostly figure. One nurse, a Catholic, made the sign of the cross and said in the direction of the spirit, ‘Thank you for your assistance, Doctor.’ As this was said, the doctor’s image suddenly disappeared. Because we had a patient to tend to, we got back to the business at hand and only freely spoke of seeing the doctor’s apparition later after completing the operation. We all had to admit that the good doctor was continuing the work in death she loved so much in life.”

Despite surgery room instruments being moved about, doors opening on their own, and footsteps being heard in empty halls, our job responsibilities continue as normal and as usual. I know the rational mind works to disprove, even deny, what I’m describing, but eventually, even the most hardened minds can change with enough evidence. I sincerely believe this to my core.