Kirkwood Community College’s Respiratory Therapy Club gave visitors a lung-lasting scare as they transformed the Katz Family Simulation Center into a spine-chilling Haunted Hospital. Complete with a fog machine, bloodstained rooms and ghostly staff and patients, the annual event left people gasping for air as a way to spotlight the profession during National Respiratory Therapy Week, on Saturday, Oct. 25.
“When the idea first came up, we were trying to balance ideas,” said Liliana Hoffnagle, Respiratory Therapy program director and club advisor. “What can we do to invite the community, and also our current staff, faculty, and students, to participate in this event as well?”
The Haunted Hospital, now in its third year, is a part of the Respiratory Therapy Club’s annual Halloween celebration. “The students really enjoy it,” Hoffnagle said. “You’d be surprised at how our students can be sometimes kind of shy, and then they just bloom. The students just kind of go with it, and they do such a great job.”
Every year continues to be a breath of fresh scare with new ideas, spooky additions and changing themes. Open only one night, close to 200 guests filed through the eerie hospital settings, such as the ICU turned morgue and the ER, bloody and cobweb-ridden.
In the hall outside the Sim Center, visitors could enjoy complimentary popcorn and a separate room for little ones with a movie and a coloring sheet, while others became victims of the horrors of the hospital. The event aimed to raise funds to support students with the additional expenses associated with the Respiratory Therapy program.
“This is an opportunity that’s really special and unique for respiratory therapy to be able to raise funds to support their program,” said Page Baughman, a Paramedic student helping at the event. “It’s nice to do something fun that involves the students.”
The funds raised this year were more than twice as much as in the past. Already in the process of planning next year’s Haunted Hospital, the excitement has everyone holding their breath. “We look forward to continuing this in the next couple of years, and hopefully it continues to grow and people hear about it,” said Hoffnagle. “We’ll just continue doing it until we can’t, I guess, but it’s exciting to do it.” In this Haunted Hospital, every breath counts — even the ones you don’t take.
Categories: Art & Life
