Otherworld - Episode 45: Anointing of the Sick

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

A man named Daniel tells the story of his near-death experience from what he assumed was a simple ankle injury during 8th grade. And an encounter with a man that he assumed was a particularly unkind priest which has left him unsettled and confused to this day. Special thank you to Father Lopez and The Monastery of Angels for answering some of our Catholic questions for this story. If you live in Los Angeles or are visiting, go check out the Monastery and get yourself some of the famous Pumpkin Bread cooked by the nuns! To see photos related to this episode, click here Subscribe to Otherworld on Patreon for exclusive content and bonus interviews Check out our Merch Follow us on: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter If you have experienced something paranormal or unexplained, email us your full story at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we begin today's episode, a quick announcement. We are officially seeking more stories for the podcast. So if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, send the story in to stories at otherworldpod.com. If you've had one and thought about sending it in before and had cold feet, now is the time to do it. We have a very important month coming up for the show, and we're going to be pouring through the email submissions that we've already received and also looking for many, many more. So now is the time. If you've experienced something, send it in. Stories at Otherworldpod.com. Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner.

The story comes from a guy named Daniel, who is in his 30s now, but had a very intense experience when he was in eighth grade. It all began when he started having some pain in his ankle, which he ignored, as most kids probably would, until that, pain suddenly became too much to ignore. What happened to him next was incredibly frightening, but it's actually not the frightening thing that he ended up emailing me about. That story had to do with someone or something that visited him right before this saga was finally about to come to an end. This is episode 45, Anointing of the Sick, and you're listening to Otherworld. Hello? Is it Bobby? Yes, it is. At its core, the science you can't,

I'm worried about all the science. Up in the sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm going to die. It's limbs were just like wrong. Everybody moves back into the night, even if it takes them a minute. My name is Daniel McGee.

I am 32 years old. I'm from the Philadelphia area. Currently living in Reading, Pennsylvania, which is the town I was born in the town this story takes place in. I did move into the city into Philly for, about 10 or 11 years, but Redding has a way of drawing you back in. My story takes place in my 8th grade year. I was going to school at a school called Skookle Valley Middle School. And I guess just to

kind of describe myself, you know, what I was like at that age. I was, you know, very active. I I played a lot of sports. I was outside often, skateboarding, riding my bike to the pool, just a very active kid, kind of a, you know, generally happy. You know, had a good friend group, hung out with some good people, you know, good crowd. At the time, I think I was really into basketball. That was kind of my main sport. I went on to later play ice hockey in high school, but I was a basketball player.

at the time. And my story kind of revolves around an injury that led me to the hospital, but an injury that kind of hindered me from playing basketball. That's a big part I remember of the story is that I had hurt my foot and it really hindered me from all physical activity, which was like a huge bummer for me because I said I was on the go a lot. But in eighth grade, in the winter of the eighth grade school year, I started to develop a pain in my right ankle. You know, at first it kind of felt like a rolled ankle or like a sprained ankle, which I've had numerous times.

You know, it was pretty, felt pretty routine at first. but as the days went on, it continually got worse and worse. I remember, you know, one of the anecdotes I had told in my preliminary story is that I was, like I said, I was active playing basketball, and in eighth grade, we always had the faculty versus students game. I was so excited for it, and this, what appeared to be a rolled ankle, kept me out of it. And I just, it's so funny, I just remember being super upset about that and, you know, wish I could push through. But I was starting to realize, you know, this, this might be worse than a rolled ankle.

This might be worse than a sprained ankle. So I did my best to, you know, push through. And kind of the general position from my parents was, you know, just, you know, ice it. take care of it the best we can, take your ibuprofen, and we'll just kind of wait and see what happens. And about a week, five to seven days from that student versus faculty game that I missed, it had gotten to the point where I couldn't really ignore the severity of it anymore. It was just a throbbing, heavy pain. Finally, about a full week after this started, I had woken up in the middle of the night, almost hallucinating.

You know, I imagine that was attributed to the fever I had had, which I believe was just over 104. Having my temperature red is something that I do remember. I do remember my mom being alarmed, talking to my dad and saying, hey, this is really high. high, you know, we should go. We should take him, we should go now. That's one of the details about this night that I remember. And, you know, from that point, my next clear memory is being in the ER. I do remember, you know, the sterile kind of. luminousin hospital lighting. I do remember there being people in the ER for such a late, late hour.

I mean, I guess that's just obviously how ER's worked. There's always something going on with someone. But I was kind of aware. But at that time, my parents were really trying to just soothe me. Part of me was relieved to be at the hospital. I was trying to process everything as quick as I could. it was still very unclear what was going on, but the doctors had come to the conclusion.

What seemed like pretty quickly that this was a staff infection in my ankle. And I'm not sure what tests were run. I'm not sure what symptoms were screened. I was very in and out at this point. after they had made the diagnosis or after they had thought they'd known what was wrong, they went into operating, that's when they had. From what they told me, and I know this is kind of gross, but they had stuck a tube in that area of my foot,

and they had drained a brown liquid. I believe they had put in a cloth that they would eventually have to take out. I think that's common with a lot of these is to soak up anything. that was left and I had a dental abscess at one point and they did the same thing in my cheek. So I think they had put something in there that they took out a day or two later. But all of a sudden, I am conscious again, not knowing what time it is, but aware that I am in a recovery room. I have a parent on both sides of me and I, I have a parent on both sides of me.

and I was the only one in the recovery room at this time. So it was a pretty big room. I'm not sure how many beds, but quite a few beds. I was the only one laying down, hooked up to the IVs, hooked up to the medicine, saline, everything like that.

And it was just me and my parents in that room by ourselves. And one of the first things that I, and I, I don't know why this sticks out so much, but I remember this so much is my dad shaking me and saying, Dan, you can't fall asleep right now. Your breathing is a little shallow. The doctor doesn't want you to sleep. Just got to stay awake for a little bit.

So that was pretty clear to me. It was clear at the time. It's very clear looking back on it. You know, I don't know how much my fever had come down. I don't know how they treated my fever. But it kind of seemed like, okay, you know, that's confusing. but I understand that you're telling me to do that. I'm sure I'm sure I slipped off a few, you know,

slipped out a few times and that's why he had to keep, he shook me a few times just to keep me awake until a point where I can finally, everything was stable. I was able to shut my eyes. You know, I had a close on me at all times. But, you know, at this point, the doctors knew this was a staff infection. They knew this was a bad staff infection because it was not, caught early and I can kind of get into the severity of that in a bit. But I was eventually transferred

to a private room the next day. The timeline on this is a little bit tricky because at this point I was receiving pain medication. I was a little bit in and out. But you know, you don't stay in the recovery room for long. So it was probably the next morning I was moved to a private room and I was visited by the doctors and the surgical team that had finally told us for the first time what was going on. They said that I had a pretty bad staff infection in my upper right ankle. They told me it was great that I came in because if I had waited even a few more days, the conversation would have been, the conversation could have been, where do we amputate, not where do we make an incision, which is very scary to hear.

You know, even though I had been stabilized at that point, it was still scary to hear how bad it could have been. And they even said that if I had gone another week or another two weeks, this could have gotten into my bloodstream and killed me eventually. That's how these staff infections do become terminal if you don't treat them is when they get into the blood and kind of take over the bloodstream. So that was a lot to process. It was way more severe than any of us thought. It wasn't a trauma injury. It wasn't a bruise. It wasn't a roll. It wasn't a sprain. It was a staff infection. and I have never had a serious infection in my life.

And I still haven't to this day, knock on wood, but, you know, I'm going up, I had a lot of strep throats. I maybe had a cold once or twice, never had the flu, never had anything crazy. So this was quite a shock and just a lot to process. And my first questions were, how did I get this? You know, you commonly hear like, you could get a staff. infection from like a bad jacuzzi or a bad hot tub and I really hadn't put myself I haven't cut myself I haven't I hadn't done anything I wasn't like in a high risk situation so it was a

little bit confusing trying to figure out how did this happen where did this happen there was a lot that was still unknown at that point but the main part was or the good part rather was that it was correctly diagnosed, it was immediately operated on and the prognosis was good. I had been, they were confident that they had drained, what needed to be drained, the medication would be effective. It was still in a kind of a trial period. Maybe trial is not the best word, but, you know, they still had some questions. They still had to see how I reacted. I'm allergic to a medicine called a moxacillin. It's very common. So they just weren't sure how I'd react to certain medications if they would work,

if they wouldn't work. But so far, day one after surgery, everything was seeming to be okay. You know, I couldn't tell you the pain medication I was on, but it was a drip. I was in eighth grade, so it was probably a pretty modest morphine drip. something that was a little bit stronger at first. And every day I had been feeling better. The pain had been feeling better. At that point, I don't really know if I knew that that's the reason that I was feeling better at the time anyway.

I just knew that I was on pain medication. I was feeling better. The outlook was good. My family was with me. The surgical team had visited me. They knew what happened. They took care of it. And everything had looked good.

Everything was, everyone was happy. It was a big sigh of relief. And a few days had gone by where I was just left to be monitored. You know, my vitals were constantly checked. They were checking how I was reacting with the medication. And everything had been good. On I think the fourth or fifth day, this is another, about a week, maybe again, seven or eight days later, I was ready to make my way home. And I think I was just,

this might have been the second to last day. And, you know, we were making preparations to get home and everything seemed kind of settled. And I was, I was, sitting in my room and my family was talking about what they wanted to eat. I had told them, I'm fine. If you guys want to just run down to the hospital cafeteria, like, just go grab something. I had probably been, I don't know, watching TV or something. I think it's important to note that at this time I was not receiving any pain medication. I was not feeling sedated.

I was aware of everything that was going on. I wasn't foggy on who was in the room. I wasn't foggy on where I was in my treatment. I wasn't foggy on a lot of things. When my parents left the room, it was the first time that I was, felt like the first time, I was really in the room by myself.

And what felt like, minutes, maybe even seconds after they left the room, a priest had walked in. The priest that had walked into my room was about six feet tall. If I had a guess around 60 years old with a more kind of weather-worn face, wearing a traditional black pants, black shirt, white clerical collar. And he did have a jacket on and pretty much presented as a, you know, as a priest. There wasn't a lot that really stood out except for he did not smile once. And this was the first time I had ever met a priest that really just looked unhappy to be there.

I think that's the best way I can describe it. did not look happy to be there. He said very plainly, the first thing he said, and he said this as he stood, maybe he was a step into the doorway, is when he said, you should have died. That was the first thing that sent kind of a alarm off in my head that was like, this is a bit uncomfortable.

It shook me a little bit to start, and I wasn't sure where it was going to go. from there, he then very plainly said, I'm here to give you the anointing of the sick. The anointing of the sick is reserved most of the time for people that are on their deathbed. So this is something that you get if you're a terminal, you know, if you have cancer with very few days to live, if you're in an accident and you're in the critical care and it's not looking good, you're, you know, oftentimes a priest will come in and give you anointing of the sick. This is like a final blessing, but before you pass on.

But I know that it's reserved for usually the terminally ill. So with the anointing of the sick, he had said prayers. He had sat next to me, you know, I think he had been leaned forward from my bed and the way I was laying down. I can just see that his, he was bent over in kind of a. hands on his knees in a praying position. I don't know if he had a rosary or if his hands were just folded. He had said a number of prayers. Some were very familiar.

Some were the our father. Hail Mary. And then he had also said some prayers that I was not familiar with. So I can't quote them or recount them. But I know, I had recognized some of the prayers that he was saying. This praying, he didn't ask me to. to join in prayer at all after he had said, you should have died and then told me I was receiving the anointing of the sick.

He had prayed over me for about five or ten minutes. He was mumbling the prayers a bit. Enough for, like I said, enough for me able to make out, okay, I recognize this prayer. I was not informed that a priest would be visiting me. when he had finished he had got up he had looked me dead in the eyes and said you are lucky to be alive you should not be alive and then walked out of the room and again you know i when the praying had started i'd felt a little bit better about the situation um but as he said that like the room

the room was dark. The way he was looking at me was dark. You know, I'm not much of like a vibes person, but the vibe was awful. He said that very plainly, as if it was, oh, just something that I ought to know, and then he had left the room. So the whole span of time that he was,

in the room was maybe about 10 to 12 minutes. There was no talking. There was no, how do you feel? There was no, are you feeling better? There was, you know, no talk of my family, no talk of where he was from. There was, you know, this person had appeared in my room told me something that, you know,

I probably already knew that I was lucky to be alive. but in a way that I guess he almost felt disappointed that I was alive. It almost felt like, and I've never really shaken this feeling that like I was supposed to die. That's the feeling I was left with when he had left the room is I should have died. I dodged a bullet. I am extremely lucky to be alive as if, as if I do have God on my side, but the man, the priest that had entered my room,

did not at all feel like a servant of God. It was truly a traumatizing 10 to 12 minutes as I just let him talk. I do not remember saying anything. I do remember being pretty frozen. Also, up to this point, Clergy are someone you are always told to trust and, you know, respect and listen to. So that was, it was the darkest I've ever felt in my life.

It definitely felt like he was sent reluctantly. He didn't want to be there to do this. He wanted to make it very clear that. I should have died. This should have killed me and that he was disappointed that I was living

and that I had made the recovery. Okay, we have to take a quick break, but we will be right back. About 10 minutes after the priest had left, I had signaled to the nurse that I was uncomfortable. I was just visited by a priest that had made me upset with the things that they had said.

It was very dark. The nurse had left the room, I believe, in an attempt to try to locate my parents. I did ask where they were if they could come back. And they did return within five or ten minutes of the priest leaving. So they were gone, you know, about 20 minutes maybe, somewhere. that rains. So both my parents walk into the room together. I immediately tell them that I was visited by a priest that had said some very scary things to me, some things that made me very uncomfortable. I told them that the priest had no emotion, did not seem happy to be there,

and was really scaring me with what he was saying about my condition. and the severity of it. I told both my parents this information together. Both had told me they had not scheduled a visitation from a member of either of the clergy, either of their clergy. And I think my dad was definitely more upset than this. My dad's a little bit more of a hot head. He's a devout Catholic, but he's Irish Catholic.

so he, you know, were a little bit hot-tempered. And he was extremely upset about this because he knew how difficult this had been for me. He was very upset that after all of this, I still had to go through something traumatizing at the end. We, you know, that's I'm sure the last thing he wanted is for me to, feel this way from anyone, a doctor, a priest. So he was visibly upset, seeing that I was upset. My mom was a little bit calmer, but she was also confused that somebody had visited me without them knowing or without them scheduling.

And my dad, who is often the type to get to the bottom of things, you know, he's the first one to talk to a coach if I'm not playing or, you know, a parent if they say something out of line. And he immediately went out after I had explained the situation of what happened, he had immediately gone out to the front desk to try to get more information. and this is where it gets even darker because the hospital did not have a chaplain. They did not have a in-house chaplain. So that was immediately ruled out that it was the hospital chaplain. Then they looked at the sign-in. sheet because everyone has to sign in, I mean, especially to get to the floor that I was on. There is a paper trail of who signs into the hospital, who's there to see who, in what room.

And that's when we found there was no documentation of a priest or any clergy member, one signing in or two coming to see. see me. That was not on the registrar for the hospital. It was not on any sign-in sheet. So that's the first thing we found out is that there's no paper trail of this priest, of this man. You know, it's even hard at times to call him a priest because this man just did not embody a priest at all. He may have been dressed like it. He may have known the vernacular.

He may have known the prayers, but he really did not embody a priest at all. And I do remember my dad saying, if we look, if we see other priests from my church, from your mom's church, could you pick this man out of a line? And I said, yes, I could. I could do that. And when later, when we tried to do that, none of the priests from my dad's church or pastors from my mom's current or past matched the description.

I had never seen this man again. I had never seen them at other church events when we would see other priests or other priests or other. congregations or other clergy members. I had never seen this man again after he left my room. It had really just cast a dark cloud over what seemed to be a pretty normal, optimistic recovery. But I should say my dad, my dad really led to charge on this. He vowed to try to get to the bottom of my visitation because I think in his mind he wanted it so this priest never visited a child again. I think that was his goal is to make sure this person is not assigned to any hospital visits because of the bedside manner. You know, absolutely not to children. Try the best

to find any type of evidence of this priest or where he came from. I know that he went as far as to have them save the video, all the entrance video of the time that this happened. It was nothing. It was, it was, there was no, we watched it from, you know, we checked it from maybe an hour before the situation. We had checked it an hour after. You know, we may have checked it before an hour,

but this person would have appeared in other areas had they been on this floor. And there was no sign of this person entering the hospital, being on any of the floors and being on my floor. leading up to the time, during the time, or after the time. You know, in the way that I think that he was not a servant of God, I may think that he was a servant of something else. And I can't, you know, I think the easy or logical religious counter to that is a servant of Satan. a servant of sin, a servant of the dark side.

You know, like I said, I was very religious as a kid. I have since distanced myself from religion, not really because of this, but because I was more raised Catholic and I have a lot of other issues with the Catholic church. You know, so it's really hard for me to, it seemed like a dark entity. It seemed like something that manifested itself as something good to be able to contact me, to be able to enter my room, sit next to me. and it presented as good, but it was dark.

It was bad. It was not just a grumpy man. I mean, it was, or monotone man, it was like a dark entity. And that's why it's like, it's hard for me to say priest because it really didn't feel like a priest. He didn't feel like a priest.

like a priest at all. He was wearing the garb, but just did not feel like a servant of God at all. It felt like a servant of something darker. It's funny. Actually, I found this today. There's a series of stories. Redding isn't known for much. Like I said, it's like the town Taylor Swift is from. John and Kate Plus 8 are from here, but Reading's not really on the map all that much. But there are these stories called ghost stories of Brooks County. And I had just found this today, and it's so funny that I found it on the day that we were going to talk. But there's just a lot of stories of the county that this happened in hauntings in the county that this happened in, which I also think is funny because these ghost stories of Brooks County, this is book three. I think there's like four or five of them. All of these

tales are chilling and are places that I've been you know there's just a lot of really odd goings on that date back to 1600 and this seems

to be a place with a lot of haunts and tales and kind of sinister stories but this is the only sort of of paranormal experience I've ever had in my life.

You know, I'm not something. I don't feel like the veil is thin with me. I think I see things pretty black and white. I think I know I have good intuition and instincts. I go with my gut. I've never had another paranormal experience except for this one. And this one is, enough. If I had this one and that's it, I would be fine because this one absolutely shook me

to my core. It did kind of make me feel like there are, there is a constant balance in the world or in another world of good and evil. It definitely made me kind of feel like it made me think of those final destination movies and like cheating death and the consequences if you do cheat death and and you know that has always kind of interested me but i've never been um visited by a dark presence again i've never had another supernatural paranormal experience um it it was i was visited by this being that told me that I should have been dead. I'm lucky to be alive and walked out of my life. And I don't know, it's always just, it's always just shaking me up.

So Daniel's experience was obviously puzzling for many reasons. The main reason is that whoever or whatever this person was that visited him did not show up on any of this security footage. The other reasons were how bizarre this ritual was when it was performed and the way it was done. Now, I'm not Catholic, so I really do not know much about the traditions, the various sacraments, or the anointing of the sick. but I ended up finding somebody that does know quite a bit about it. And I found them in an unusual way. Right in the middle of the Hollywood Hills, there is a Catholic monastery called the Monastery of Angels.

The nuns that live there have been baking pumpkin bread for 90 years and selling it to the public. It's kind of amazing that a place like this still exists right in the middle of the Hollywood Hills. But anyway, I was there buying the bread, and I ended up speaking to somebody that introduced me to Father Vincent Lopez. And I ended up speaking to him on the phone about what exactly is the anointing of the sick, when it's used, and what he thinks about this entire story.

I'm Father Vincent Lopez. I've been a priest for 67 years, presently 93 years of age. I have been a part-time chaplain for 65 years at the Monaster of the Angels, and I'm an active priest filling in in different Catholic parishes in the west side, the east side, in south central. Father Lopez, first of all, can you just explain essentially what is the anointing of the sick? Well, at the time of Jesus, there was holy anointing, and the gospel of James speaks about if the people are ill called a priest and have them anoint to people with oil.

Oil has a of its nature, a healing aspect to it. And so the symbolism of oil healing the body, the church in a sense superimposed on that, the oil also heals the inner self, heals the soul. So for 2,000 years, when people are ill, they need some healing, we anoint them with the Holy oil. Holy oil is to bring back physical health and spiritual health. You do all of this in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We do the Holy Anointing in the name of the passion and death and resurrection of Jesus.

When is this performed? Is this something done to people who are on their deathbed, essentially, who are approaching death? It used to be deathbed type of thing, 50, 70 years ago. But the emphasis right now is anyone that needs healing, any illness that they might have. They don't have to be dying. and what I do is anyone that's ill, and they ask me to come, I give the Holy Anointing.

I do it also for people who are dying. Is this something typically the person who's receiving it or their family would request, or is it something that's just done? Most priests would give the Holy Anointing if they're requested to do that. We do not superimpose it on anybody. not like you wouldn't just like walk in to somebody's hospital room and do it to them basically without them asking or the family asking no we wouldn't do that my brother priest we don't we don't force the sacrament of the holy anointing on anybody yeah i mean we might we might suggest it to them um which i've done i've suggested it and most of the time uh

More than half the time, people are fearful of the Holy Anointing because they mean that's the sign I'm dying. That's not the position of the church. We want to give Holy Anointing to people who are ill, who want some healing, and Holy Anointing is not restricted to the dying. That's really interesting. I mean, I explained it to you before, but, you know, the story that I'm doing right. now is about a man who was a kid at the time when this happened, but he was in the hospital recovering from a very serious infection and had just got out of surgery. And somebody that he thought was a priest, it might not have been a priest, suddenly appeared in his room and seemed

very angry and intimidating and said some things to him that scared him quite a bit. And then did the Holy Anointing in a way that left him very shaken. and his family was very upset by it and they tried to find this priest but nobody could find any trace of him but even just like the fact that he was so intimidated by this sticks out to me I have to assume that

when this is performed it's usually done in a very kind way not in an angry way is that correct yeah you're right about that second party and whoever that fellow was that gave the anointing. It might have been in the black suit.

I don't know. I only know that my brother priest that I know, none of us would force the holy anointing on anyone. And we're very respectful to people that we see in hospitals or emergency. We're very respectful. We give the sacraments, for the most part, to those who request it. Yes, ma'am. Who's there?

Yes, sir. Come here over for 10 o'clock? Oh, 10 o'clock, right. I'll be there on time. Okay, thank you. I had a reminder that I have the 10 o'clock mass. No problem. But I hope this helps you, Jack.

Yeah, no, it was very helpful. I'll let you go and get to your mass. I think I've asked everything that I wanted to know. Thank you so much for talking to me, Father Lopez, and it was great to meet you. I hope you have a great day. Good to talk to you today, Jack. God bless you, son.

You too. have a good day. Bye, bye, bye. Hello? Hey, can you hear me? Yes. How's it going, man? Good.

How are you? I'm good. So, I just got off the phone with a Catholic priest. I'm, you know, I'm not Catholic, so I wanted to reach out to somebody who knows more about this than me. And it was interesting. He told me that the anointing of the sick is not necessarily something. something that is reserved for people on their deathbed. And, you know, I know that's like not the main thing about your story, but after talking to him, I guess I wanted to call you back and see,

what is it exactly about this priest and your experience that made you think it was paranormal and not just a mean Catholic priest? What was it that seemed off about all of this? You know, the main thing that I keep coming back to is how the priest that spoke to me knew of my condition. Like the surgical team were the only people that truly knew. They came to my room the next day after surgery. They said, you know, you're lucky you came in. A few days later, we could have been talking about an amputation situation. A week later, you could have died.

like they they were the ones that knew the seriousness like that that still bothers me that this man who we had never found another trace of was apparently the only other person aside from the surgical team that knew that I did almost lose my life or I came close to it um and and not only that I think the other thing that really kind of bothered me the most was that, as I said, I was in this recovery room, probably close to a week. I was really not alone at all. I probably was here and there. Maybe I was sleeping in alone at some point or minor times where I was alone. But when it felt like I was alone for the first time was when this man walked into my, like almost immediately after my parents left, this man walked into my room.

Like, I don't know if he was waiting there. Like, I, like, the timeline kind of makes my stomach drop a little bit. Because as I said before, it felt like minutes, maybe even seconds after they left, somebody else, this man, this priest was like in my room. How did this priest know? this priest who we have never found a single trace of, and why did he come at the time he did? Yeah, we checked all of the hospital sign-in sheets.

We checked all the video, and we were able to see the time stamps. We were able to see the floors. We were able to see everything. And we found nothing. We found nothing. There was no way of us not. spotting him from the security, you know, hallway footage that we saw.

There was no way that we would not see him. There was no entrance video. Like, no one matching the description that I had, the description that was very clear, ever came up on video. And I know that frustrated my dad a lot because I think for him, he was thinking this was a priest. This was like a priest that either is kind of. kind of sick or like doesn't at the least doesn't have good bedside manner and like this like this priest

needs you got to talking to that we need to figure out who this priest is we need to figure out where he came from what church he came from and we we couldn't figure out anything we couldn't there was not a single lead to follow um and as i told you a little bit before like my mom who's in ordained minister she spends most of her time visiting sick visiting elderly there's always like a paper trail There's always a communication. There's always, oh, yeah, I talk to this person. Even if it's not digital, there's always a way to track who's going where at what time to see who. And there's none of that.

There's nothing. It's, I still don't, I still don't know. Like, I still, it's still one of the things that kind of makes my stomach, like, sink a little bit about it. You know, aside from the dialogue he had with me. I mean, it remains to this day, like, the most probably uncomfortable dialogue I've ever had with anyone. It remains the most, like, intimidated I've been made to feel. He immediately told me that I should have died. I always got the feeling that he was upset with me.

That's the one thing that, like, I've hung on to all this time is that he was upset. I don't know, upset about my condition, upset that he had to be there, upset. I don't know why I feel that way, but I just feel like he was upset with me or I did something wrong. And I don't know if that was because I was younger. The feeling that I hang on to the most is that I did something wrong. He reiterated that this should have killed me and then he left. Like, I guess I really don't know what to make of it. I truly don't.

You know, hearing some of the stories of the people you talk to, I guess I've just been okay with not knowing. Like, I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever know. I don't know if I'll ever in my gut know what happened, who it wasn't why. But it's, it's just haunted me ever since. Thank you to Daniel for telling us that story.

and thank you to Father Vincent Lopez for speaking with me. If you ever find yourself in the Hollywood Hills craving pumpkin bread, do I have a monastery for you? You go check out the monastery of angels if you're ever in Hollywood in the need of prayer or baked goods. So in the making of this episode, I found myself constantly wanting to write this off as just a boy being frightened by a grumpy priest. But I really can't explain away the fact that,

whoever this was did not appear in the hospital security footage. And Daniel's dad obtained all of the security footage from the multiple cameras in the area of where Daniel's room was. And nobody came in or out. Nobody was seen on camera coming or going from the hospital or the area where Daniel was staying in. I can't explain that. I've heard a lot of stories over the years from people who work in hospitals. And one day I actually hoped to do an entire episode just about that. So send in stories if you have them. But one pattern I've noticed is people being visited by something shortly before death.

Daniel said that this man seemed very annoyed as if he had done something wrong. Part of me has to wonder if this man, no matter what you think he was, was originally brought there to be visiting a dying person. but that person ended up escaping death and not dying at the very last minute. So maybe that's why this man was so annoyed. This has been episode 45, Anointing of the Sick,

and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Coperman. The soundtrack of this episode is by Juice Jackal and North Americans. This episode was edited and engineered by Theo Schaefer. Our artwork is by Coltosec Studios. Please show us your support by subscribing,

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