👻 The ghost hitchiker

Source:pxhere.com CC0

According to legend, there is a tombstone beside Club Street, Sandringham, Johannesburg, at the bottom of the dip. If you happen to pass this dip at exactly midnight, you will see a woman in white standing on the side of the road next to the grave.

Some people say they have given her a lift, but when they turn to talk to her, she vanishes, leaving only behind a small pool of water and a ghostly chill.

The property next to the road belonged to Rietfontein Hospital who in the late 90's decided to clean the area up for development and in the process, discovered a graveyard. It turned out to be the graves of patients who had died of cholera decades before, and who, to avoid contamination, had been buried in this isolated area.

Rietfontein Hospital (now known as Sizwe Hospital) was established in the last 1800s as a quarantine station (lazaretto) for communicable diseases like Smallpox (which had reached epedemic levels then). Later it was used as a hospital to treat Tuberculosis and Anthrax. As a precaution, patients who died there were also buried on the grounds.