Urban Exploring: Pennhurst Mental Institution

This Memorial Day, I visited the abandoned Eastern State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic, also known as the Pennhurst Mental Institution in Spring City, Pennsylvania. The facilities here, as you can guess by the name, housed several thousand mentally retarded and physically handicapped patients from it's opening in 1908. Pennhurst has been the source of a lot of debate for some time. It had been under scrutiny for overcrowding, patient abuse, and sexual abuse of patients since it's opening. Roland Johnson, an ex-patient at Pennhurst Mental Institution, writes in his autobiography, Lost In A Desert World, about being physically and sexually abused by other patients and witnessing the hospital staff do the same to completely disabled bed ridden patients. A 1968 news report, Suffer the Little Children, shares similar findings at the institution. It brings the public's attention to the overcrowding and poor conditions at the severely understaffed hospital. This news report had a strong influence on the eventual closing of the hospital in 1987. Several years after the fact staff interviews paint a different picture of the Pennhurst Mental Institution. In interviews with a registered nurse and an aide, they claim that the press really exaggerated the story they prepared for the public. They claim that old photos from times where standards weren't as high were used in the reports and painted an unrealistic picture for the general public.

My visit started with a 4 hour car ride including a stop at Wendy's where we laughed at Paul's chicken sandwich which looked so overcooked and heat lamped that we deemed it the "Chernobyl Chicken Sandwich." We then stopped laughing at Paul's sandwich to laugh at Paul when he somehow absent-mindedly threw out his tray. Good job Paul. As we got into the area we saw the huge Nuclear Power plant nearby. While I've noticed a few on my train rides through France, I've never actually seen one in the US so it was kind of neat to be able to stop and actually take a few photos.

Once we arrived in Spring City, we wandered around a bit and finally found a road closed sign in front of a blocked path. The water tower was the landmark closest to this closed road. We seemed to have found what we were looking for so we stopped there and wandered down the path.

After a few minutes of walking the abandoned road, we came across another street of the main road. After about a minute of following this road we came across a section of cleared land. There were two buildings here. One appeared to be a sort of school or administration building. It was difficult to tell without actually breaking in, which we did not do. We wandered around this site for a moment and then continued on the main road. Not too long after we came across another side street.

We followed this path way and came across the main campus. The path way led to a really neat building that had an archway. I believe it may have been attached to the building we saw at the previous opening.

The main campus has several buildings. Supposedly all of them are connected by an underground maze of tunnels. The tunnels were used to transport patients back in the days this place was functioning. Sadly, the ones we came across were blocked off, however, this is the best way to actually enter the buildings. The campus also has a raised walkway connecting many of the buildings on ground level.

Scattered throughout the entire campus one can find various ruins of things to entertain the children that lived here. Just off of the walkway pictured above, one could see an in ground pool. We also found a few slides, some of which were in better conditions than others. A swing set and a set of monkey bars could also be found somewhat towards the center of the campus in an overgrown playground.

While we didn't actually enter any of the buildings this time, I was able to take a few window shots. I was particularly fond of these shots because without the camera flash, you couldn't see anything in these rooms. I was kind of surprised that there wasn't more vandalism inside than there was. In a few of the rooms I photographed, there wasn't even any graffiti. The paint is peeling off the walls and the pipes and lights are rusting, but there wasn't very much damage at all that seemed caused by vandals.

I really enjoyed this little adventure. It was amazing to see something like this so overgrown, but still preserved so well. I would love to try to go back at some point before it is fully torn down to check out inside of the buildings. I suppose we'll see how that works out.

Pray to your god, open your heart
Whatever you do, don't be afraid of the dark
Cover your eyes, the devil's inside

One day it'll all just end

My French Hospital Experience

I feel like I've been keeping extremely busy lately. I've just gotten back to the US after spending two weeks in France. My France trip was great although I did get to see a portion of France that one generally does their best to avoid while vacationing, the hospitals. I think the reason I ended up in the hospital are best summed up by the words of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. "I fell down some stairs." In the end, I blame the Doc Marten's that I was walking down the stairs to retrieve. I hurt one of my toes and thought it may have been broken. Knowing that a hospital can't really do anything for a hurt toe, I simply asked my host family for some ice and maybe something to tape it up. They however insisted that we go to the hospital. After telling them it was really not necessary, I finally gave in a went to grab my wallet and coat. Sadly, I forgot my camera. French hospitals are quite different from hospitals in America.

According to my host mother, this hospital was a quite old and a new one was being built to replace it, even so, it was still rather surprising to me being used to the hospitals in America that are so shiny and clean that you could probably eat off the floor. The first thing that caught my attention was the lack of any sort of parking lot. We parked around the block and walked to a closed gate where we had to page the nurse. The gate was already opened a bit so we came in and the nurse met us at the door. I'm not sure if this is typical of the daytime shifts as well or just the night shift. She escorted us to a room where she asked me for my information. Rather than attempting to explain my life story in French I just handed her my driver's license. She filled out her bit of paperwork and then said the doctor would be in momentarily. Being used to the American system I expected to see the doctor at some point in the next hour...not the next two minutes. I was pleasantly shocked when the doctor really did show up in just a moment.

Unlike the nurse, the doctor wasn't the friendliest of people... I suppose this is typical of American doctors as well. He decided I needed to have x rays. The nurse then escorted me to the room with the x ray machine where there were some chairs to wait in. I started to sit down and before I landed in the chair the x ray technician had already come out to get me. The strangest part about this whole trip was not that that I was not told to use a wheelchair, they let me walk to have my x rays taken, but that the x ray room had thin walls. Here, I believe they need a certain ridiculous amount of steel in the walls, floors, and ceilings of the rooms where the machines are. I was also not given one of those lead aprons to wear. No complaints there ...I don't want kids anyway ...But it was still an odd moment for me when he just turned around to snap the photos. He didn't even have to leave the vicinity of the x ray like they do here. A few moments later he handed me the x rays and sent me back to my room and within seconds the doctor came back too.

The doctor took a few glances at the x ray and told me that my "finger" was not broken in English which was cute considering it was my toe we were there for. He left and sent the nurse in to wrap it up and then sent us on our way without any sort of charge. I must say that I agree with the French medical system. It would be nice if we jumped on that bandwagon pretty quick. From what I understand, government run health care is not as nice in places like England and Canada but if our system would take a few tips from the French I think it would be a huge step up from our current health care predicament. It was nice to walk into a hospital for the first time ever and not have to think about how I (or my parents) will be able to pay for this when its all done and over. Once again, I look forward to the day America can do the same for its people.