Mystery at Hospital.
Tappings in the night.
Women patients at Seacroft Isolation Hospital have been alarmed recently by mysterious tappings in one of the wards, the origin of which could not be readily discovered. So terrified were some of the women that they left their own beds and took refuge with neighbours.
The tappings occurred usually in the early hours of the morning, and seemed to come from one of the windows, as though somebody outside was trying to attract the attention of those inside. The sounds were as though made by a coin on the window and had a metallic ring. The grounds were searched, but nothing was found, though porters kept watch on several nights. The windows of the ward concerned are about fifteen feet from the ground and it seems almost impossible for anybody to reach them.
The tappings were heard by the night nurse in charge of the ward, but she said she did not think they came from outside. In this she was supported by the night sister who spent a night in the ward in an attempt to get at the bottom of the mystery.
The Matron, Miss Tomlin, and Dr Woodcock told a “Leeds Mercury” reporter yesterday that their opinion was that one of the women had been absently tapping her metal bed with her wedding ring and finding it caused a sensation had continued to do it, possibly as a little variation from the monotony of hospital life. They were confirmed in their suspicions by moving the suspected woman from one side of the ward to the other. The sounds also moved, and when they finally moved the woman out of the ward altogether the tappings ceased too.
Whatever the explanation of the tappings may be they have greatly affected the nerves of many of the patients. One who has just left the hospital was so affected that one night, hearing tapping noises in her bedroom at home, she was much alarmed.
She felt she must have brought the cause of the tappings with her, and even now she has been able to find no reason for the mysterious sounds in her home.
Leeds Mercury, 30th October 1930.