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People’s entire lives were lived at this facility. One person moved in at 19 and lived there into their 90’s. It’s mind boggling that their history is being allowed to rot.
History being allowed to rot? You think anyone wants to think about time spent in that place? It should rot and be a lesson in humanity for us all. We have an abandoned asylum in my home town and even teenage girls who got pregnant were kept in the place for years and stuff like mild depression or anxiety was basically a life sentence. As someone with PTSD and more I cant imagine being held in somewhere like that for something that im managing with medication and therapy and having freedom.
This place didn't even fully close until 2014! (I'm only 5 minutes into the video and am not sure of what you mention, so sorry for any repetition.) Romney announced in 2003 that it would be closed by 2007, and people hiding behind the term advocate began to protest to keep it open. They managed a 7 year lawsuit while arguing the place held up normal levels of care and cost the state the same amount as anywhere else (spoiler: it was 4 times as much as other facilitilies). I think one of the most sickening things is that it's estimated 50% of people at this specific school were of normal intelligence, but due to years of abuse they were essentially developmentally disabled by adulthood. The oldest person at the school in 2013 was 84... and had been placed there in 1948. I don't care what disability he had - just imagine how much worse this place made it.
@Dalishar Arcturus That's awesome! I did the same thing - got my associate's and then my bachelor's. It isn't easy but it's worth it. But yeah, you could've ended up somewhere like here. But anyone could've for any reason. Like in the 1940s men with PTSD from WW2 were lobotomized without families even knowing where they were, and many ended up so disabled they could never return home. Hell, I saw the after effects of the childhood abuse first hand when I worked with people with disabilities. There was one guy in his 70s who spent his childhood at Willowbrook Hospital (which is around 3 hours from me). He had no disability anyone could diagnosis but his parents were too poor to care for him and all his siblings so he was left there, abused (physically and sexually) from the 1940s to the 1970s and permanently believed he was 7. Saddest thing I remember was when he was bored he would just rock back and forth for hours. It was a habit he picked up as a child when he would be kept with 20+ other kids, some tied to beds or chairs, most with little to no clothes on, and also with no toys, books, television, or anything to do but rock. Sorry for the length of this comment. But the history of mental and developmental health in the US is so horrifying, I think everyone should be aware so it doesn't happen again.
Oh! I forgot one of the best examples of people without a disability ending up somewhere like here. Warning: it's a bit long. Carrie Buck was the first person to ever be sterilized against her will, the Supreme Court ruling 8 to 1 that this could be done without consent to stop the bad bloodline. Except Carrie was likely totally neurotypical, backed up by journalists who interviewed her. So why was she deemed feebleminded? Well, her mother was left by her husband, was extremely poor and possibly had to prostitute herself for money. This was the 1900s/1910s so without birth control she ended up with 3 kids, all with different fathers. The institution said because of this, she clearly had an intellect of an 8 year old and was feebleminded. That was literally the major reason. Carrie was adopted and did completely average in school, no sign of a disability. Then at 17 her adoptive mom's nephew raped her and she fell pregnant. When she was 7 months along, her adoptive parents committed her to the same place, where she stayed for 5 years until the case was finished and she had been sterilized. What amazed is that the judges actually justified it by saying in the official case write up that Vivian, aged 5 at the time, was also feeble minded. (Yet she was getting 80% or higher in all classes up until she was 10, when she died from measles.) There was no proof of any disability but they deemed she had one, so she ended up being sterilized. And to make sure the family line was stopped, Carrie's half sister Doris went in for surgery on her appendix in the 1930s or 1940s and was also sterilized, without even being diagnosed. Doris didn't learn about it until the 1980s though. Horrific all around for sure.
our equivalent was the dozier school in marianna except instead of mentally disabled boys it was boys with behavior problems and instead of nuclear breakfast it was rape, physical abuse, and murder. the place didn't close until 2011 and there's investigations going on to this day.
My grandma was put in a convalescent home as a child because she would had seizures and her parents thought she was possessed by the devil so sent her to stay there. I asked her many times to tell us how it was growing up like that and she would never talk about that time. Many horrible memories for her sadly.
So sorry to hear that. My neighbor was among many raised in Foster Care due to seizures. At about 70 years old he clearly has some brain injury challenges (i do too - from a car crash) and still cannot read. He talks about an uncle with a farm and chickens, so he had some family support. He worked hard as a teenager and young adult to get a Drivers License, was married 4o years. When she died, we helped him get a new routine and support system. He goes for walks now and knows many neighbors, and i got him into the Senior Center system for friends and help with paperwork. He drives older women to the store weekly. It's working out - because he was willing to tell us how alone he felt and reached out to ask us for support. He has contact with a sister too, who helped him get a new lawn mower. I hope the right housemate comes along. He goes to Church/stores too much during the pandemic to be safe. I take fresh fruit and veggies over - which he loves. A wave and smile, and stop to visit - this goes a long way!
"Sometimes the doctors, and nurses, and caretakers are crazier than the patients, themselves." My mother's sister received "shock therapy," occasionally, for her "nervousness." R.I.P. Aunt Consuelo, "Tia Chata" 🥀
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has a terrible stigma around it, but it can provide rapid, significant improvements in severe symptoms of several mental health conditions. ECT is used to treat: Severe depression (especially treatment resistant depression), particularly when accompanied by detachment from reality (psychosis), a desire to commit suicide or refusal to eat. But that is very sad it was used on your aunt who clearly only suffered from anxiety.
@mimi12nini12cece Its a practice involving using electrical shocks to send signals to the brain. It can work, but a lot of the times it was essentially a torture strategy.
In 2013, there were still 13 residents there. That's 7 years ago. The last resident left in 2014. How did this place deteriorate so much in seven years? Amazing.
The modern buildings were not filmed because they weren't cool enough for their video. Those deteriorated buildings they focus on were abandoned in the '80s .........
@@Mike-bh2if When they said that, I actually thought, "yeah that was only 10 years ago" and did not realize until I saw this comment chain. 2016 feels like yesterday
When I was a kid I was raised by my aunt who was a psychiatric nurse. She was in charge of nurse employee training at the Rhode Island State Institute of Mental Health. She held the position for over 40 years and during the 80's and 90's (after conditions in other hospitals led to a number of investigations and the decline of the institutional model) she was in charge of helping patients find group homes to go to. She hated the system, feeling it didn't actually help people and instead just invited abuse, and worked tirelessly to put herself out of work. Later on once she retired she ended up dealing with the state nursing home system. She and other former and then current health care workers inspired the state of RI to look into conditions at its state & private nursing home facilities. One of the things I most remember about growing up in RI is how every weekday she'd pick me up from school on her lunch break and take me to work with her. I would spend the rest of her workday exploring the old buildings. Some you couldn't get into as they were administrative (I was only allowed in her office) but many of the buildings lay dormant and were totally empty and easy to get into. When you've grown up around places like this you really start to understand how terrible and lonely they were.
Jay Man it’s also Obama’s fault that we don’t enough PPE for all the healthcare workers out there. The Obama administration didn’t restock the national stockpile after SARS hit. Somehow some liberals say he was the best president the US ever had. I’ll never get this, maybe they all have internal demons.
these places make me incredibly sad for the people who were forced to live there. I am autistic and do not function well without assistance. I would have been put into an institution were i born even 20 years earlier. I have enough mental health issues living in modern society, with the ableism and difficulties i face today. But living in a time when these places were used, would have been horrendous. I have to fight to be seen as human even today, and it was so much worse back then. Humanity has come a long ways, but we still have a ways to go.
I had a grandmother that worked at an “institution,” a churched up way of saying a mental asylum. She had severe dementia before death and thought she was still nursing. I loved her as a child but as I got older, she freaked me out a bit. I spied on her once in the garden, talking to “someone” out there. (No one was there.) She was saying, “We have to bury the babies.”
@@chelseacullen147 I was freaked to say the least. It got worse after that. Even years after my papa died she would scream and pick fights up him (most of the time in the middle of the night). She was bad about walking around in the dark talking to herself.. just talking. I swear she was what psychological horror films are made of.
There's a lot of pain and sadness in these buildings. Thank you for being respectful of your surroundings while you were in them. I'm sure the lingering souls of this institution appreciate it.
The original Call the Midwife books set in London, England, say that there was a workhouse howl, from those who had survived being raised there. They would split families up by age and sex, for simply being poor and many never saw each other again. Children could be sold to employers, for a seven year apprenticeships, if returned you could be beaten or starved to death by the workhouse. From 1834 to 1900
You guys frequently bump into pianos in these abandoned locations. One of you should learn how to play a little ditty on the piano for when you encounter them.
'The Experimental School for Teaching & Training Idiotic Children' sounds so over-the-top now you could never put something named that in a work of fiction. Even though it was real.
Normally it's stuff like 'retarded' which sounds bad, but 'retard' wasn't always an insult, it used to be common language (i.e. "retarder" on some ignition systems of old cars as well as the hydraulic speed control systems on trucks, even those produced recently), it makes sense to call a slower person 'retarded' in that sense even though the term has changed to be an insult with modern context. Calling them idiotic is over-the-top for sure, though. It's like they really tried to be as insulting as possible.
I work in Mental Healthcare. People constantly talk about re-opening these large hospitals. Why do that to anyone again? These old ruins are a testament in why these facilities were closed. Torture is not treatment. These facilities were prisons. Btw some of those cribs are not for babies 😕
I noticed that, some of them were quite large. Btw and pardon my ignorance on the matter, what kind of institutions take care of people with mental disabilities these days? Or how does that work?, I mean, if it's different from these large place
I remember when they started to shutting down these facilities in the 1980's. A number of patients where released right into the general public. . We has this one guy who would stand on the corner with his shirt off working on his tan. All year round., 15 degrees Fahrenheit didn't matter to him. There was no plan as to what was to be done with a lot of these patients, this was just as tragic. Pushing them into the community with no place to go and nobody to look after them.
Same in the UK. I grew up near a very similar kind of asylum in Scotland that was wound down through the 80s and 90s and mental health care is an ongoing stain on this country. Institutions weren't necessarily the best place but you can't have "care in the community" if you don't actually make the provision for it in terms of budgeting for carers and support staff.
These state-funded institutions were seen as a major cost to states. They were looking for a reason to get rid of them. Big pharma came a long with new drugs to treat mental illness, so the states figured they'd just get the patients on new drugs, send them out in the wild, and just have them check in every week or so with a social worker or nurse practitioner. More severe patients went to group homes. The problem was there was a huge gray area. Someone that did very well with little guidance (would stay on meds, etc) would go completely off the rails when left on their own, b/c they would forget to take their medication or decided to stop taking it. Folks with mental illness were often shunned in employment, so they often ended up on a vicious downward spiral from living in soem squat apartment to then getting evicted or simply going out on the streets to live and either wind up homeless or in jail. So, state-funded institutions went away, and many jails picked up the slack...but end up with mental patients in very aggressive prison populations where they get beaten, taken advantage of, and don't have sufficient medical staff to really help them. (Guards are definitely not orderlies). So, we've just swapped state institutions where abuse happened in medical research, to homelessness and jails where abuse happens for no reason other then "someone wants to hurt you for no reason then to feel better about their own miserable life".
Richard West Yep. That is what has happened to a lot of them. They are. Big part of the homeless population. And no better off. Different places and different life, but still the abuse and neglect.
I just can’t stop wondering what kind of secret stories/facts and test results are hidden in all the paper files and films there. I hope they do a good check and tell the public what they found before they break this place down.
Seeing these sorts of institutions always makes me shudder. I have ADHD, Generalized anxiety disorder, and a mood disorder. To look at me now (I'm 20) you wouldn't think I'm much different than other people. But I misbehaved a lot as a little kid, and pretty badly as well, until my parents and doctors were able to figure out my diagnosis and prescribe some medications and get me a therapist. If I had been born like 20-30 years earlier, I could have ended up in a place like this. Learning about institutions like this one make me really thankful that we've made so many advances in mental health. I'm glad I'll be able to live a normal life instead of being cooped up in a room the size of an elevator for my entire life.
ADHD does not exist just because you are hyper and curious and get bored easily become mischief doesn't mean you are disordered or disorganized in behavior. Hyper people are intelligent in which non hyper people clueless of it
@@iiatargetanalyst3046 Girl what? It absolutely does exist. It’s a different way a brain functions, similar to autism. MRIs of a “normal” brain and a brain with ADHD are pretty astoundingly different.
Waltham bought out this property about six years ago. They were tossing around the idea of using it as a high school, which I find distasteful. I don't necessarily believe in ghosts (though God knows if ghosts are real, then this place is haunted). I just think it's crass and disrespectful to steamroll this place's history, to "build over," as it were, the suffering of so many people who were held there. This place, in my opinion, should be preserved as--and presented for--exactly what it is and what happened there. I have the same gross feeling about the condos on the grounds of where Danvers State once stood.
SugarDemon1035 They’re never gonna build the new high school anyways... they’ve talked about it yet done nothing... even when they took over the Stigmatize. Either way, I completely agree it’s very disrespectful to do a thing like that.
Have you been to Danvers? I went last fall and I had the worst feeling the whole time, I couldn't imagine living near there nevermind working in the main building
Ghosts don't exist Demons do and that's what ghosts are (Bible believer here and i thought ghosts before were just entities/dead people trapped on earth but no but since reading the bible well it's not possible Every human dies and returns to dust Something that doesn't is a demon ) On the other part of your comment though i agree shouldn't build a new place for kids when so many had suffered before They should take the personal files and such and demolish the rest if they want Maybe build a park/garden instead
The whole entire time while watching this, all I wanted to do was jump through the screen and pick up all the books, and papers and pictures and keep them. Restore them, and maybe even try to find the people who it could have belonged to. But I think they don't take anything because it might be stealing and it might be dangerous.
Massachusetts has way too many of these abandoned places.. funny thing is this one is in my town! When you showed the photo of Walter E. Fernald I recognized it immediately! It’s so weird to see it in the inside now. I can’t even lie every building in Waltham including the high school is just as creepy and old.
I recently qualified as a learning disabilities nurse, and during my studies I was shocked to find out in the UK the order to close these kinds of institutions and move people into the community was only in 2000, and yet when you think of institutions you think of the mid-1900s and earlier, not the turn of the millennium!
When you explore old buildings such as these you should always wear proper filtered face masks to protect you from mould, asbestos dust, lead paint dust, excessive bird droppings. Protect those lungs. Great video!
I find it kind of interesting how people perceive time. If someone sees something from 2000 they don't think it's that old even though it's been 20 years, but as soon as something has 19-- it suddenly seems so old, even if it's 1998 or 1999. It's pretty weird how we see 20 years as not that long, when it's around a quarter of a human lifespan.
You are right. I can't believe Y2K is already 20 years ago... I still remember all these IT task forces sitting in their offices around Dezember 99 because they feared all the computers crashing. Nothing happened. 😃
I think part of it is the logic behind prices that are like 4,99 it feels a lot cheaper because of the 4 but in reality you only need one more to make it a 5. Same with the years 19.. vs 20.. feels different
My heart hurts for all the people that suffered there. It’s a crazy reality that I would’ve likely ended up going to such a place, as a mixed female with Aspergers. Hopefully all of the kids here were able to lead happy lives.
I am happy that I ended up in a much better place. My folks had to look around and make deals, but I got threw school and now I design electronics and stuff for a living.
@Arthur Kitchen Your lack of empathy for human life makes me believe there is something seriously wrong with you. Probably wrong enough that you would belong in these places where you think people with mental health struggles belong. You may seem "normal" but a lack of empathy is a sign of many very serious mental illnesses, probably more severe than what many of the people thrown in here actually had.
I've gone down a rabbit hole, found this channel, and I'm not sure how and if I want to get back up. Edit: Also, for the record, I had literally just poured myself a bowl of dry oatmeal and started eating it when I clicked on this video
@@Aquatarkus96 its pretty normal, atleast in my country, for breakfast, as a snack etc, you dont have to cook oatmeal in any way, its perfectly healthy and good raw. it can be served with milk or yogurt!
It's safe to say that the people who built and ran this place were more "mentally challenged" in a moral sense than any one person who was trapped living in it... Disturbing to know what some humans chose to do to each other in times gone.
I wouldn't be so quick to judge. It could very well be out of ignorance that they chose to do things this way, if a method is bringing results, someone is bound to make use of it. Modern society taking their citizens needs and feelings into count just wasn't a priority back then, and the only reason we see this so horrible, simply shows how we as people have evolved since then.
Let's be frank, our entire plutocracy should be rounded up and dropped on an island. With cameras watching them defraud each other, con and manipulate, and eventually feast on each others flesh. While we make a better world, free of their evil greed and insanity.
Interesting how many of the empty file cabinet drawers in the vault were pulled open and left that way, as if the people who worked there grabbed sensitive and secret files and ran out in a big hurry on their last day there. Of course, it could also have been other urbex’s, squatters and vandals snooping around looking for something interesting.
The Fernald Center's last resident was discharged on Thursday, November 13, 2014. The state sold the property to the city of Waltham in 2014 for $3.7 million, retaining some rights to profit from future leases and with some historical preservation conditions. As of 2019, despite considering use of the property as a high school or police station, it remains vacant.
Even modern mental hospitals are hubs of abuse. There was one 35 minutes from me (I almost had to live there 😳) that had an investigation because they found a frozen person and fingers in a freezer. The facility is now closed as there were several other allegations against it (I can’t remember them all) but it’s crazy to think about. There’s also doctors who don’t care about mentally ill patients either. I had a psychiatrist that nearly killed me from taking me off a high dose of meds I’d been on for a year cold turkey. I’ve heard a ton of other stories but please share yours!
My psychiatrist is unfortunately the best in the whole area where I live and she took me off all my meds cold turkey!! I had a horrible experience…. 😢 severe leg pain, felt like I had the flu and I eventually went into psychosis … she always asks me what meds I want to be on yet she’s the doctor.. I had a genesight done and when I tell you bc of my anxiety I always bring it with me, I went to the hospital a few weeks ago made them copy my testing and they still tried putting me on meds that I have tried before and don’t work right .. luckily I refused it and got no backlash. Mental health is still so overlooked in many states unfortunately
even worse is hearing the treatment plans and input from the doctors. i worked as a discharge planner for three months at a UHS hospital and hooo boy im still shocked they havent closed down. working there almost put me back in the psych ward and set me back mentally so far
A lot of orphans were also sent here, my grandfather being one of them. He never spoke much about his childhood and went to great lengths to not so much as aknowledge this part of his life ever happened. All I know is bits and peices of it my father has told me that he was told by my grandpa, or from my grandma. He unfortunately unexpectedly passed away in September of 2020 (not Covid related at least) and took all of those memories with him. After researching into it myself, and especially reading through the massive lawsuit that against them that happened both due to the Quaker Oats/MIT incident as well as the abuse and mistreatment of those there, especially those who where placed there by the state in cases like my grandfather or other reasons who had their lives forever ruined because of it
@@Ponacho247 thank you. Im just glad he was able to have a fulfilling and wonderful life even with everything I know he had gone through, and the laundry list of horrors that he could have gone through as well that well never know about
I'm aware of the explorer's code but the sentimental side of me says the pictures, polaroids and papers with names should be preserved. The asylums are my favorite.
It’s not just an explorers code, depending on the ownership status of the building, it could also be illegal to take things. Most abandoned properties are still state, city, or county owned so they’re technically private property. It is unfortunate though that the new owners don’t think to preserve the old items and display them in local museums.
@@farcry3master382 Crime is not simply 'crime' in that you can get charged with more than one of them and punished for all of them at the same time. The more you do, the worse the punishment! Judge may just give you more for both than they would've one. I mean, how far can that really go? Why do 1 year in jail when you can do 10...? Already goin in, right?
I’m so glad this place shut down for good. To any people that grew up there and are still alive today. I hope your doing much better now and your living a happier life now.
The bathtub in that upstairs room with the fireplace was most likely used for hydrotherapy, a common thing in psychiatric institutions back in the day.
I'm on the spectrum but very high functioning so I'm pretty independent. When I was younger I was temporily in a part time institution school and let me tell you. The way they treated some of the kids was down right depressing. Lower functioning students and kids with bad behavioral issues in my opinion got the worst treatment. They were treated lesser and they were the ones that got roughed around the most. Places like these genuinely make me sick and I can't fathom how humans even act this way.
13:19 "For Thirty-seven years superintendent of this school under his wise guidance and humane administration. It became a model for the whole world " There's a lot to take in on the plack. You can tell how evil that man is from that one sign alone. It sends a chill down my spine just thinking about it.
The backstory of this place is WRONG and EVIL. Whoever worked here and whoever made that would of been or should be arrested. I can’t believe children had to go through that
@ᑭIᗰᑭᒪE ᖴᗩᑕE I understand sympathy, it's just without what was done back then, we wouldn't have information and knowledge we have today. I get that it's messed up but there's really no other way around it
@@flyhacking5830, no don’t justify this bullshit this was unethical expermentation, when the experiments with radiation took place there was information out there showing it’s harmfulness not to mention the unethical nature of doing this without consent from the families.
That is pretty ignorant. The only reason we know what we know today, is (partly) because of experiences like this. And we can't go to those people and arrest them for doing their job, their priority back then was science and learning new things about us as humans. If we want to blame them, we have to look at it from the morals and ethics that we had back then, not the ones we have now. Otherwise every human generation before us would be seen as evil people, which they certainly weren't.
man seeing these types of abandoned places is so bittersweet, they're such beautiful and fascinating buildings but it's horrifying that these types of institutions aren't all that old. people tend to think of asylums as things of the past but even today there are places that treat disabled folks like they're subhuman
Interestingly, there was a prominent Western actress in the 1950s who actually became an advocate for special needs children, Dale Evans Rogers, after her daughter was born with Down Syndrome. They asked if she wanted to put her in an institution, and she said ABSOLUTELY NOT. She and her husband Roy did their best to love and raise her despite the challenges. Tragically her daughter died from health issues a couple years later. She was so moved by the experience that she wrote a book in an effort to get parents and the public to see the beauty of children like this, "Angel Unaware".
But very true not alot of people think that way that's why they would be fucked in that kind of situation . Luckily these guys can tell if anyone is around .
I think that way too, but because I'm claustrophobic. Either way, I'm sure they had cell phones. These two appear to be brave souls who will get the shots they need for the sake of their art. I do think they should wear face masks in some of the buildings they enter that have black mold and/or asbestos.
I’ve been here a few times, super surreal place. The steam tunnels are also super cool to check out. The high school when I was there last had an excavator out front and front loaders in the basement I took plenty of pics to keep its history alive if it’s demolished. Some of the area seems to be getting gutted for demo but with COVID everything is stopped. I wish they went to the oil power plant that’s onsite as well it’s a site to see.
Yup yup... Don't forget about the Fairview Training Center,... The outside shots of the property reminded me even more of Fairview, and the distance between some of the cottages,... That is at least until they bulldozed it all.... Before we know it, the land will just be another neighborhood with as many homes crammed into it as possible, and the history, and stories, myths, and legends, will have all but been forgotten... Really though.... With as bad a history as some of these places across the country had , forgetting them may not be that negative of an outcome.
I've lived down the street from this place for my entire life (22 now). I did some research on the "school" a few months ago as they've started tearing stuff down, and never realized someone was living there until 2014. I've wanted to explore it for a while, but police presence has steadily increased recently. Been watching you guys for a while and never noticed you had a video on it!
The 1800's were weird. It's amazing that this place was allowed to even exist. I feel so bad for the people who had to endure whatever they went through. Great video and hope you guys are staying safe in these times!
@@shorey66 really does ad some nice pizzazz to the place. I like the emoji chairs the best. Its hard for a place to be haunting when there is a chair lookin like :D
Why can't a team go into these places that has slides and other documents be obtained instead of being left to rot? These was human beings like anyone else. They deserve to have their stories told. If I could salvage those important items I would in a heartbeat. I'm sure so much unknown is hidden within those items, if only a group of people took a chance to box everything up to be housed in a safe place. It's horrible these unfortunate souls are just left forgotten.
Their stories maybe forgotten but it only closed in 2014 so their are some that got out due to closure before 2014 that lived to tell the tale. Their families just dumped them so they were probably moved to other facilities and reassesed and released. Released to unpleasant families who agreed to take them back or foster homes for the unfortunate children who's families wouldn't take them back. Adults were living there because after age 18 they had nowhere to go with families that wouldn't help, that had written them off the moment they were admitted to the "school" most of which are probably homeless or a lot more mentally ill then they were (if they ever were) and in adult facilities. So sad. But who would believe them? Their out there alive for some, it's just a matter of finding them. With all those files you could have all the names and find the living ones should anyone want to, but noone will.
Been to this location a half dozen times. Every building is wide open for entry but be careful police patrols and drone patrol. If you get caught you will get arrested here. But if you dont get caught is one of the craziest places I have ever been to and will go again before it is gone. Thanks for sharing
I've been here!!! One of the first places I've explored. Definitely eerie! if you walk into the woods near one of the entrances where there is tunnels there is a whole other set of buildings and what looks like radiation gear...insane
All I think about while watching y'all explore these places, is the history and what this place looked like during operation. Who were the people inside and who were the doctors and nurses. What were their lives like in this place and when/if they got out. So many questions. Love your work fellas. Stay safe.
I explored this place alot, and im pretty close by. I find it super cool knowing that i walked the same grounds as you guys! Im really glad you guys were able to check this place out and give it the recognition it deserves.!!!
This gives me Evil Within vibes! The vault of files is like the one in Evil Within that is behind the desk and then, that room with the chair and desk also kind of portrays a room your character ends up in. This was a great episode!
They should all be shut permanently. Concentration camps at best these days teaching all kids to be exactly the same and to obey their Government... and are just going to get worse.... no thanks.
When I visited my mom in a nursing home found her trapped by her beside table in her own filth because the bed change staff before they could change her got the call to start serving breakfast Well let's say I very loudly voiced my concerns.
you seriously dont understand how happy i am that you uploaded : ) also might sign up to your patreon , i have become so addicted to these videos and thought i would give my own back , these videos are truly amazing .
This reminds me of my dad's descriptions of working at the Foxboro State School, just south of there. From what I can tell through Wikipedia, that school has been largely demolished and gentrified, but some buildings remain.
I always hate seeing beautiful vintage buildings like this trashed and forgotten. It makes me mad that they'll be left to rot or be completely demolished. Yeah, the history of this place might be horrible, but there is so much that could be saved and reused.
i seen other explorers come to this place :( it's sad to think about all the kids who didn't even know they were being experimented on! they just thought it was a "science club" its so sad because these kids probably trusted some workers to take care of them!
As always you guys found an incredible place with an extraordinary story! I will say, I'm not a super emotional gal and I don't get anxious or nervous often, this place however hurt my heart. Those ppl having to live there were warriors!
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Isn't this supposed to be pinned
@@themadman6310 oops. thanks for letting us know.
The Proper People what part of mass is this in? the building looks so familiar
What’s the story behind the small square slides all over the ground. It seems like you guys find them in many kinds of buildings
@@TheProperPeople your welcome
People’s entire lives were lived at this facility. One person moved in at 19 and lived there into their 90’s. It’s mind boggling that their history is being allowed to rot.
Allowed to rot ? , how about become just non existent.
History being allowed to rot?
You think anyone wants to think about time spent in that place?
It should rot and be a lesson in humanity for us all.
We have an abandoned asylum in my home town and even teenage girls who got pregnant were kept in the place for years and stuff like mild depression or anxiety was basically a life sentence.
As someone with PTSD and more I cant imagine being held in somewhere like that for something that im managing with medication and therapy and having freedom.
@@cragerzz Yeah wow. A lot of us would've been locked up if we were born during those times. Scary thought!
That's just sad
@@green--apple I know I would have been in there...scary stuff, as I deal PTSD and depression and anxiety disorder too
This place didn't even fully close until 2014! (I'm only 5 minutes into the video and am not sure of what you mention, so sorry for any repetition.) Romney announced in 2003 that it would be closed by 2007, and people hiding behind the term advocate began to protest to keep it open. They managed a 7 year lawsuit while arguing the place held up normal levels of care and cost the state the same amount as anywhere else (spoiler: it was 4 times as much as other facilitilies).
I think one of the most sickening things is that it's estimated 50% of people at this specific school were of normal intelligence, but due to years of abuse they were essentially developmentally disabled by adulthood. The oldest person at the school in 2013 was 84... and had been placed there in 1948. I don't care what disability he had - just imagine how much worse this place made it.
Cris thanks for the information.
😢
@Dalishar Arcturus That's awesome! I did the same thing - got my associate's and then my bachelor's. It isn't easy but it's worth it. But yeah, you could've ended up somewhere like here. But anyone could've for any reason. Like in the 1940s men with PTSD from WW2 were lobotomized without families even knowing where they were, and many ended up so disabled they could never return home.
Hell, I saw the after effects of the childhood abuse first hand when I worked with people with disabilities. There was one guy in his 70s who spent his childhood at Willowbrook Hospital (which is around 3 hours from me). He had no disability anyone could diagnosis but his parents were too poor to care for him and all his siblings so he was left there, abused (physically and sexually) from the 1940s to the 1970s and permanently believed he was 7. Saddest thing I remember was when he was bored he would just rock back and forth for hours. It was a habit he picked up as a child when he would be kept with 20+ other kids, some tied to beds or chairs, most with little to no clothes on, and also with no toys, books, television, or anything to do but rock.
Sorry for the length of this comment. But the history of mental and developmental health in the US is so horrifying, I think everyone should be aware so it doesn't happen again.
Oh! I forgot one of the best examples of people without a disability ending up somewhere like here. Warning: it's a bit long.
Carrie Buck was the first person to ever be sterilized against her will, the Supreme Court ruling 8 to 1 that this could be done without consent to stop the bad bloodline. Except Carrie was likely totally neurotypical, backed up by journalists who interviewed her. So why was she deemed feebleminded?
Well, her mother was left by her husband, was extremely poor and possibly had to prostitute herself for money. This was the 1900s/1910s so without birth control she ended up with 3 kids, all with different fathers. The institution said because of this, she clearly had an intellect of an 8 year old and was feebleminded. That was literally the major reason.
Carrie was adopted and did completely average in school, no sign of a disability. Then at 17 her adoptive mom's nephew raped her and she fell pregnant. When she was 7 months along, her adoptive parents committed her to the same place, where she stayed for 5 years until the case was finished and she had been sterilized.
What amazed is that the judges actually justified it by saying in the official case write up that Vivian, aged 5 at the time, was also feeble minded. (Yet she was getting 80% or higher in all classes up until she was 10, when she died from measles.) There was no proof of any disability but they deemed she had one, so she ended up being sterilized.
And to make sure the family line was stopped, Carrie's half sister Doris went in for surgery on her appendix in the 1930s or 1940s and was also sterilized, without even being diagnosed. Doris didn't learn about it until the 1980s though.
Horrific all around for sure.
our equivalent was the dozier school in marianna except instead of mentally disabled boys it was boys with behavior problems and instead of nuclear breakfast it was rape, physical abuse, and murder. the place didn't close until 2011 and there's investigations going on to this day.
My grandma was put in a convalescent home as a child because she would had seizures and her parents thought she was possessed by the devil so sent her to stay there. I asked her many times to tell us how it was growing up like that and she would never talk about that time. Many horrible memories for her sadly.
So sorry to hear that. My neighbor was among many raised in Foster Care due to seizures. At about 70 years old he clearly has some brain injury challenges (i do too - from a car crash) and still cannot read. He talks about an uncle with a farm and chickens, so he had some family support. He worked hard as a teenager and young adult to get a Drivers License, was married 4o years. When she died, we helped him get a new routine and support system. He goes for walks now and knows many neighbors, and i got him into the Senior Center system for friends and help with paperwork. He drives older women to the store weekly. It's working out - because he was willing to tell us how alone he felt and reached out to ask us for support. He has contact with a sister too, who helped him get a new lawn mower. I hope the right housemate comes along. He goes to Church/stores too much during the pandemic to be safe. I take fresh fruit and veggies over - which he loves. A wave and smile, and stop to visit - this goes a long way!
Oh my gosh I'm sorry to hear that
@JulieMikalson I hope he's doing better!🖤
Sad
"Sometimes the doctors, and nurses, and caretakers are crazier than the patients, themselves." My mother's sister received "shock therapy," occasionally, for her "nervousness." R.I.P. Aunt Consuelo, "Tia Chata" 🥀
I’m sorry for your loss 💔😞
She definitely didn't deserve that 😔
Rip 😘
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has a terrible stigma around it, but it can provide rapid, significant improvements in severe symptoms of several mental health conditions. ECT is used to treat: Severe depression (especially treatment resistant depression), particularly when accompanied by detachment from reality (psychosis), a desire to commit suicide or refusal to eat. But that is very sad it was used on your aunt who clearly only suffered from anxiety.
@mimi12nini12cece Its a practice involving using electrical shocks to send signals to the brain. It can work, but a lot of the times it was essentially a torture strategy.
In 2013, there were still 13 residents there. That's 7 years ago. The last resident left in 2014. How did this place deteriorate so much in seven years? Amazing.
That’s really cool info. Are there any documentaries or articles on this?
The modern buildings were not filmed because they weren't cool enough for their video. Those deteriorated buildings they focus on were abandoned in the '80s .........
@@happyypigeons No, they weren't. I worked there until 1986 and the buildings were still in use.
@@ReneeW59 So did they really abuse kids?
@@ReneeW59 so, what really went on there?
"2000? That's not even that old."
When you realize it was 20 years ago ._.
I'm still like: 2000? Yeah that's around 10 years old... but then comes the realization... FeelsOldMan
Oof yeah... Thats crazy...
@@Mike-bh2if When they said that, I actually thought, "yeah that was only 10 years ago" and did not realize until I saw this comment chain. 2016 feels like yesterday
that isn't really that long if we are being honest
He was correct, 20 years _isn't_ that old.
Radioactive oatmeal sounds like something you would see in the fallout universe.
Dysgalt 😱
Or a alt metal band
@@joshuaayres8932 With one of those unreadable fonts.
Dexter made it in his lab
@@joshuaayres8932 good one
That's quite the secure storage for files. A freaking vault. Makes you wonder what they so desperately wanted to keep so hidden.
With today's HIPPA laws, a vault like that is basically mandatory.
@@RobertMorgan HIPAA arrived in the 1990s. A locked filing cabinet will do.
the data for the nuclear breakfast experiments
@@RobertMorgan I was thinking the same thing.
The vault is more about protecting the files from a massive fire. If the building burns to the ground they will still have the patients main files.
Imagine another person was exploring and heard the piano... I would literally die like
I would have to. I would have been like nope and left instantly.
I would scream and run away from here. 😱
You can feel so much sadness looking at some of those rooms. I imagine there's a lot of activity at night.
?
@@King_Zog_I Ghosts
Why just at night? Or do "ghosts" sleep during the day?
@@gypsyblack5994 nah there could be activity at any time, it just always seems more noticeable at night because it's more quiet.
ive been tbh its kinda peaceful and erie at the same time
When I was a kid I was raised by my aunt who was a psychiatric nurse. She was in charge of nurse employee training at the Rhode Island State Institute of Mental Health. She held the position for over 40 years and during the 80's and 90's (after conditions in other hospitals led to a number of investigations and the decline of the institutional model) she was in charge of helping patients find group homes to go to. She hated the system, feeling it didn't actually help people and instead just invited abuse, and worked tirelessly to put herself out of work.
Later on once she retired she ended up dealing with the state nursing home system. She and other former and then current health care workers inspired the state of RI to look into conditions at its state & private nursing home facilities. One of the things I most remember about growing up in RI is how every weekday she'd pick me up from school on her lunch break and take me to work with her. I would spend the rest of her workday exploring the old buildings. Some you couldn't get into as they were administrative (I was only allowed in her office) but many of the buildings lay dormant and were totally empty and easy to get into.
When you've grown up around places like this you really start to understand how terrible and lonely they were.
Jay Man it’s also Obama’s fault that we don’t enough PPE for all the healthcare workers out there. The Obama administration didn’t restock the national stockpile after SARS hit. Somehow some liberals say he was the best president the US ever had. I’ll never get this, maybe they all have internal demons.
God bless her.
Jacob Dean I agree! But none of you are wrong either lol
Jay Man nobody asked
Interesting...
these places make me incredibly sad for the people who were forced to live there. I am autistic and do not function well without assistance. I would have been put into an institution were i born even 20 years earlier. I have enough mental health issues living in modern society, with the ableism and difficulties i face today. But living in a time when these places were used, would have been horrendous. I have to fight to be seen as human even today, and it was so much worse back then. Humanity has come a long ways, but we still have a ways to go.
Very true. Stay strong and healthy 💚
I agree. There should have been more to compensate with people like this.
I wish for you all the best, GamingWithPie!!! :) :) :)
You look perfectly fine to me dude. Good Luck with the rest of your life and dont listen to what other people say.
It's really a darker time in psychology
If a place has a name that ends with "state school" it's bound to have a terrible history
All public schools in England are state schools (private schools are called public schools)
@@Emily-yu1ox oh so it's only American state schools that are glorified asylums
@@sogemorgan I bet some of those British schools don't have squeaky clean histories either, though of course I have no way of knowing.
Eugenics was so messed up and no one thought it to be the psuedo-science it was
@Sage Morgan well I wouldn’t say that... 😂
I had a grandmother that worked at an “institution,” a churched up way of saying a mental asylum. She had severe dementia before death and thought she was still nursing. I loved her as a child but as I got older, she freaked me out a bit. I spied on her once in the garden, talking to “someone” out there. (No one was there.) She was saying, “We have to bury the babies.”
Wow 😮
My grandmother suffered from dementia as well and i dont have a crazy like that. I bet your heart dropped
@@chelseacullen147 I was freaked to say the least. It got worse after that. Even years after my papa died she would scream and pick fights up him (most of the time in the middle of the night). She was bad about walking around in the dark talking to herself.. just talking. I swear she was what psychological horror films are made of.
Just reading that sent shivers up my spine, I can’t even begin to imagine what you felt like,Jesus…
There's a lot of pain and sadness in these buildings. Thank you for being respectful of your surroundings while you were in them. I'm sure the lingering souls of this institution appreciate it.
I worked with people in group homes who came from this location, and others similar. The ongoing trauma they live with is heartbreaking
@Jay Man Fernald School in Waltham, Mass.
Bryza Rose I cant imagine the horrors they endured 😢 so sad 😞
The original Call the Midwife books set in London, England, say that there was a workhouse howl, from those who had survived being raised there. They would split families up by age and sex, for simply being poor and many never saw each other again. Children could be sold to employers, for a seven year apprenticeships, if returned you could be beaten or starved to death by the workhouse. From 1834 to 1900
I love how respectful they are of the building, they do their best to keep it nice.
Well as nice as it was..
That way they can’t be charged with vandalism. Only trespassing.
You guys frequently bump into pianos in these abandoned locations. One of you should learn how to play a little ditty on the piano for when you encounter them.
Lol
Their opening credits perhaps?
@@emmaleec1714 Can't imagine many of them would survive that.
Actually, I'd like to see an episode where Brian doesn't touch the piano. That would be a shocker!
A few bars of their themesong?
These guys should never change their intro. Best on youtube.
I don't think I'd ever live to hear someone being fed " r a d i o a c t i v e o a t m e a l "
'The Experimental School for Teaching & Training Idiotic Children' sounds so over-the-top now you could never put something named that in a work of fiction. Even though it was real.
Normally it's stuff like 'retarded' which sounds bad, but 'retard' wasn't always an insult, it used to be common language (i.e. "retarder" on some ignition systems of old cars as well as the hydraulic speed control systems on trucks, even those produced recently), it makes sense to call a slower person 'retarded' in that sense even though the term has changed to be an insult with modern context. Calling them idiotic is over-the-top for sure, though. It's like they really tried to be as insulting as possible.
It sounds like it was ripped out of a dystopian novel
I work in Mental Healthcare. People constantly talk about re-opening these large hospitals. Why do that to anyone again? These old ruins are a testament in why these facilities were closed. Torture is not treatment. These facilities were prisons.
Btw some of those cribs are not for babies 😕
Now the mentally ill live on the streets. Progress?
I noticed that, some of them were quite large. Btw and pardon my ignorance on the matter, what kind of institutions take care of people with mental disabilities these days? Or how does that work?, I mean, if it's different from these large place
Mariana Meléndez I think they are more like real hospitals now
any place ,really is better than the streets . most of the homelessness is due to these places closing. sad all the way around .
Taylor Queensbury they use it for adults ? Can you please explain to me?
I remember when they started to shutting down these facilities in the 1980's. A number of patients where released right into the general public. . We has this one guy who would stand on the corner with his shirt off working on his tan. All year round., 15 degrees Fahrenheit didn't matter to him. There was no plan as to what was to be done with a lot of these patients, this was just as tragic. Pushing them into the community with no place to go and nobody to look after them.
Same in the UK. I grew up near a very similar kind of asylum in Scotland that was wound down through the 80s and 90s and mental health care is an ongoing stain on this country. Institutions weren't necessarily the best place but you can't have "care in the community" if you don't actually make the provision for it in terms of budgeting for carers and support staff.
And as a result we have homeless encampments such as what you see in San Francisco and Los Angeles and still no place to put them!
Love the old doors.
These state-funded institutions were seen as a major cost to states. They were looking for a reason to get rid of them. Big pharma came a long with new drugs to treat mental illness, so the states figured they'd just get the patients on new drugs, send them out in the wild, and just have them check in every week or so with a social worker or nurse practitioner. More severe patients went to group homes. The problem was there was a huge gray area. Someone that did very well with little guidance (would stay on meds, etc) would go completely off the rails when left on their own, b/c they would forget to take their medication or decided to stop taking it. Folks with mental illness were often shunned in employment, so they often ended up on a vicious downward spiral from living in soem squat apartment to then getting evicted or simply going out on the streets to live and either wind up homeless or in jail. So, state-funded institutions went away, and many jails picked up the slack...but end up with mental patients in very aggressive prison populations where they get beaten, taken advantage of, and don't have sufficient medical staff to really help them. (Guards are definitely not orderlies). So, we've just swapped state institutions where abuse happened in medical research, to homelessness and jails where abuse happens for no reason other then "someone wants to hurt you for no reason then to feel better about their own miserable life".
Richard West Yep. That is what has happened to a lot of them. They are. Big part of the homeless population. And no better off. Different places and different life, but still the abuse and neglect.
0:17
I’m so used to people using the word “idiot” as an insult that hearing him use “idiotic” as a medical term seems weird to me.
I just can’t stop wondering what kind of secret stories/facts and test results are hidden in all the paper files and films there. I hope they do a good check and tell the public what they found before they break this place down.
"We've been on sketchier floors I feel like"- 2nd floor is literally touching the ground lol
Oh they have. There's that one building that was some kind of physical rehab place. That was super sketchy.
joe boyter ua-cam.com/play/PLH0prh5aNoTKvhpol692VR7EMAZhBu6gB.html
I thought he was joking! lol
Go to the Kirkbride building at Hudson River S.H. in Poughkeepsie. The floors have pancaked down to the basement!
@@DOC100 Didn't they demolish that recently?
Seeing these sorts of institutions always makes me shudder. I have ADHD, Generalized anxiety disorder, and a mood disorder. To look at me now (I'm 20) you wouldn't think I'm much different than other people. But I misbehaved a lot as a little kid, and pretty badly as well, until my parents and doctors were able to figure out my diagnosis and prescribe some medications and get me a therapist. If I had been born like 20-30 years earlier, I could have ended up in a place like this. Learning about institutions like this one make me really thankful that we've made so many advances in mental health. I'm glad I'll be able to live a normal life instead of being cooped up in a room the size of an elevator for my entire life.
Kyle Johnson I have adhd too
Me too
Let's hope for a better future
ADHD does not exist just because you are hyper and curious and get bored easily become mischief doesn't mean you are disordered or disorganized in behavior. Hyper people are intelligent in which non hyper people clueless of it
I think about it too. I'm epileptic so if I'd been born in an older generation I'd have lived my life in an asylum.
@@iiatargetanalyst3046 Girl what? It absolutely does exist. It’s a different way a brain functions, similar to autism. MRIs of a “normal” brain and a brain with ADHD are pretty astoundingly different.
Waltham bought out this property about six years ago. They were tossing around the idea of using it as a high school, which I find distasteful. I don't necessarily believe in ghosts (though God knows if ghosts are real, then this place is haunted). I just think it's crass and disrespectful to steamroll this place's history, to "build over," as it were, the suffering of so many people who were held there. This place, in my opinion, should be preserved as--and presented for--exactly what it is and what happened there. I have the same gross feeling about the condos on the grounds of where Danvers State once stood.
SugarDemon1035 They’re never gonna build the new high school anyways... they’ve talked about it yet done nothing... even when they took over the Stigmatize. Either way, I completely agree it’s very disrespectful to do a thing like that.
I know. College of Staten Island took over Willowbrook State School in the 90s
Have you been to Danvers? I went last fall and I had the worst feeling the whole time, I couldn't imagine living near there nevermind working in the main building
SURREY CROSSING unfortunately the people who are in charge of Waltham would never even think about doing it. They could care less and it’s sad.
Ghosts don't exist
Demons do and that's what ghosts are
(Bible believer here and i thought ghosts before were just entities/dead people trapped on earth but no but since reading the bible well it's not possible
Every human dies and returns to dust
Something that doesn't is a demon )
On the other part of your comment though i agree shouldn't build a new place for kids when so many had suffered before
They should take the personal files and such and demolish the rest if they want
Maybe build a park/garden instead
my mom:
~buys Quaker Oats~
me: i just watched this video-
GET RID OF THESE OATS
All of them…. Just gone. They were born, suffered, died, and vanished.
The whole entire time while watching this, all I wanted to do was jump through the screen and pick up all the books, and papers and pictures and keep them. Restore them, and maybe even try to find the people who it could have belonged to. But I think they don't take anything because it might be stealing and it might be dangerous.
Maria Adeel yes that would be stealing if they did do that. Although it would be interesting to see what came of some though
It would also be really interesting to do more research on the floor plans and stuff - see what their intentions were with each room/building.
This would definitely not be legal. Though it’s sad that history is deteriorating, it is also best to leave it be.
Not only it's illegal, but it could be dangerous since it's likely they're covered in lead dust
Maria Adeel I mean none of it is legal.. Lol
Everybody gangsta until they pull out the radioactive oatmeal.
Ya😆
RG MCMURRAY , don’t forget the sexual assault
@@gumballmachine8750 I'd rather be sexually assaulted than eat radioactive oatmeal.
@@sepulchral. Yikes, I'd appreciate if you didn't say that. Not the best thing to show up in my notifications.
Got my strut an bounce until it's oatmeal time.
Massachusetts has way too many of these abandoned places.. funny thing is this one is in my town! When you showed the photo of Walter E. Fernald I recognized it immediately! It’s so weird to see it in the inside now. I can’t even lie every building in Waltham including the high school is just as creepy and old.
Damian Markle hm, not too sure
This went political quickly
i drive by this all the time!! im so interested with all its history. its great to finally see the inside!!
Chris Owens same! It’s somewhat nice to finally get an inside view out
I've wanted to go exploring for so long, but this entire situation means I have to stay home to make sure my family is going to be doing ok
I recently qualified as a learning disabilities nurse, and during my studies I was shocked to find out in the UK the order to close these kinds of institutions and move people into the community was only in 2000, and yet when you think of institutions you think of the mid-1900s and earlier, not the turn of the millennium!
When you explore old buildings such as these you should always wear proper filtered face masks to protect you from mould, asbestos dust, lead paint dust, excessive bird droppings. Protect those lungs. Great video!
I find it kind of interesting how people perceive time. If someone sees something from 2000 they don't think it's that old even though it's been 20 years, but as soon as something has 19-- it suddenly seems so old, even if it's 1998 or 1999.
It's pretty weird how we see 20 years as not that long, when it's around a quarter of a human lifespan.
You are right. I can't believe Y2K is already 20 years ago... I still remember all these IT task forces sitting in their offices around Dezember 99 because they feared all the computers crashing. Nothing happened. 😃
I think part of it is the logic behind prices that are like 4,99 it feels a lot cheaper because of the 4 but in reality you only need one more to make it a 5. Same with the years 19.. vs 20.. feels different
Just like covid 19? It's no different then 1999 , 911, and all the bs they pull, but the damage and abuse they do to children is real.
@@pamdrover6801 what the hell, dude?
Shhh, stop making me feel old, let me pretend 😅
My heart hurts for all the people that suffered there.
It’s a crazy reality that I would’ve likely ended up going to such a place, as a mixed female with Aspergers. Hopefully all of the kids here were able to lead happy lives.
@silverbird58 exactly. Like bill gates sterilizing 2.3 million people in india and Africa. Same shit on a higher level
I am happy that I ended up in a much better place. My folks had to look around and make deals, but I got threw school and now I design electronics and stuff for a living.
Warehousing was an awful thing.
@Arthur Kitchen Seriously?
@Arthur Kitchen Your lack of empathy for human life makes me believe there is something seriously wrong with you. Probably wrong enough that you would belong in these places where you think people with mental health struggles belong. You may seem "normal" but a lack of empathy is a sign of many very serious mental illnesses, probably more severe than what many of the people thrown in here actually had.
I've gone down a rabbit hole, found this channel, and I'm not sure how and if I want to get back up.
Edit: Also, for the record, I had literally just poured myself a bowl of dry oatmeal and started eating it when I clicked on this video
Dry oatmeal? please explain ive never heard of anyone eating dry oatmeal
@@Aquatarkus96 its pretty normal, atleast in my country, for breakfast, as a snack etc, you dont have to cook oatmeal in any way, its perfectly healthy and good raw. it can be served with milk or yogurt!
Lol I was in your state two weeks ago I found them and fell in love I spent a week watching all sorts of their vids😁💜
@@Aquatarkus96 We were out of milk. And I'm too lazy to cook so I ate it dry.
I'm really glad that I'm not the only one who used to enjoy a bowl of dried oatmeal (can't eat anymore, found out I'm allergic to oats :'(
It's safe to say that the people who built and ran this place were more "mentally challenged" in a moral sense than any one person who was trapped living in it... Disturbing to know what some humans chose to do to each other in times gone.
We still do horrible stuff to each other. Question is do we stop to acknowledge or notice it.
I wouldn't be so quick to judge. It could very well be out of ignorance that they chose to do things this way, if a method is bringing results, someone is bound to make use of it.
Modern society taking their citizens needs and feelings into count just wasn't a priority back then, and the only reason we see this so horrible, simply shows how we as people have evolved since then.
There's a book specifically about this place, The State Boys Rebellion. GREAT book
Now this is what I call content👍👍,these old Asylums carry so much history,if only walls could talk.
If these walls talked I'd bet they'd cry and scream from the trauma and torture they witnessed
Trump too
Let's be frank, our entire plutocracy should be rounded up and dropped on an island. With cameras watching them defraud each other, con and manipulate, and eventually feast on each others flesh.
While we make a better world, free of their evil greed and insanity.
I don’t think we want to know what they’d say
@@nequastar1826 probably not
This one gave me chills. It was like I could hear what that place sounded like when it was operating.
I thought I was the only one
3:39 They made the trays thick so you could stack them without squishing the food in the tray below and also held in the heat. Awesome explore.
They still r like that in some places.
Yes. I am a former flight attendant, we used them. They were called thermal trays and they were nasty.
Not gonna lie, those pictures a little after 30:00 made me teary eyed. I hope those people live and/or lived well.
I believe the institution should be preserved as a reminder to never repeat the same mistakes again.
Interesting how many of the empty file cabinet drawers in the vault were pulled open and left that way, as if the people who worked there grabbed sensitive and secret files and ran out in a big hurry on their last day there. Of course, it could also have been other urbex’s, squatters and vandals snooping around looking for something interesting.
Government probably took the experiment files; waste not, want not.
Straight on the bonfire.
The Fernald Center's last resident was discharged on Thursday, November 13, 2014.
The state sold the property to the city of Waltham in 2014 for $3.7 million, retaining some rights to profit from future leases and with some historical preservation conditions. As of 2019, despite considering use of the property as a high school or police station, it remains vacant.
That is so recent! I'm shocked.
That was my 19th birthday
I'm not there yet I can feel the pain and misery that went on.
Even modern mental hospitals are hubs of abuse. There was one 35 minutes from me (I almost had to live there 😳) that had an investigation because they found a frozen person and fingers in a freezer. The facility is now closed as there were several other allegations against it (I can’t remember them all) but it’s crazy to think about. There’s also doctors who don’t care about mentally ill patients either. I had a psychiatrist that nearly killed me from taking me off a high dose of meds I’d been on for a year cold turkey. I’ve heard a ton of other stories but please share yours!
My psychiatrist is unfortunately the best in the whole area where I live and she took me off all my meds cold turkey!! I had a horrible experience…. 😢 severe leg pain, felt like I had the flu and I eventually went into psychosis … she always asks me what meds I want to be on yet she’s the doctor.. I had a genesight done and when I tell you bc of my anxiety I always bring it with me, I went to the hospital a few weeks ago made them copy my testing and they still tried putting me on meds that I have tried before and don’t work right .. luckily I refused it and got no backlash. Mental health is still so overlooked in many states unfortunately
even worse is hearing the treatment plans and input from the doctors. i worked as a discharge planner for three months at a UHS hospital and hooo boy im still shocked they havent closed down. working there almost put me back in the psych ward and set me back mentally so far
A lot of orphans were also sent here, my grandfather being one of them. He never spoke much about his childhood and went to great lengths to not so much as aknowledge this part of his life ever happened. All I know is bits and peices of it my father has told me that he was told by my grandpa, or from my grandma. He unfortunately unexpectedly passed away in September of 2020 (not Covid related at least) and took all of those memories with him. After researching into it myself, and especially reading through the massive lawsuit that against them that happened both due to the Quaker Oats/MIT incident as well as the abuse and mistreatment of those there, especially those who where placed there by the state in cases like my grandfather or other reasons who had their lives forever ruined because of it
I feel for you
@@Ponacho247 thank you. Im just glad he was able to have a fulfilling and wonderful life even with everything I know he had gone through, and the laundry list of horrors that he could have gone through as well that well never know about
I'm aware of the explorer's code but the sentimental side of me says the pictures, polaroids and papers with names should be preserved. The asylums are my favorite.
It’s not just an explorers code, depending on the ownership status of the building, it could also be illegal to take things. Most abandoned properties are still state, city, or county owned so they’re technically private property. It is unfortunate though that the new owners don’t think to preserve the old items and display them in local museums.
Betty Sherman I mean honestly it’s super illegal to just be there so... if you’re already breaking the law that much
@@farcry3master382 Trespassing is one law, theft is another.
@@farcry3master382 Crime is not simply 'crime' in that you can get charged with more than one of them and punished for all of them at the same time. The more you do, the worse the punishment! Judge may just give you more for both than they would've one.
I mean, how far can that really go? Why do 1 year in jail when you can do 10...? Already goin in, right?
"Good morning, here's your oatmeal..." Oh my my...
Crazy world...
The kids who were part of the science club were fed radioactive oatmeal
unfortunately today we treat livestock animals even worse
Balboa Baggins who really cares, we eat them anyways
ᑭIᗰᑭᒪE ᖴᗩᑕE but they are lesser beings when compared to a human and are treated as such
I’m so glad this place shut down for good. To any people that grew up there and are still alive today. I hope your doing much better now and your living a happier life now.
Arthur Kitchen you made me laugh but that’s still effed
@Arthur Kitchen bruh???
@Arthur Kitchen uh no? My grandpa's fine and dandy thank you very much
My fave blogs “mental institutions”
I have my fair share of mental health issues and I’m terrified of places like this.
The bathtub in that upstairs room with the fireplace was most likely used for hydrotherapy, a common thing in psychiatric institutions back in the day.
That building is the original administration building; nurses lived on the top floors (with the bathtubs). No patients lived in that building.
I'm on the spectrum but very high functioning so I'm pretty independent. When I was younger I was temporily in a part time institution school and let me tell you. The way they treated some of the kids was down right depressing. Lower functioning students and kids with bad behavioral issues in my opinion got the worst treatment. They were treated lesser and they were the ones that got roughed around the most. Places like these genuinely make me sick and I can't fathom how humans even act this way.
13:19 "For Thirty-seven years superintendent of this school under his wise guidance and humane administration. It became a model for the whole world " There's a lot to take in on the plack. You can tell how evil that man is from that one sign alone. It sends a chill down my spine just thinking about it.
Lol... sad chairs just chillin
I’ve also noticed there’s chairs in various states of just chilling in this video
19:16 👍
The backstory of this place is WRONG and EVIL. Whoever worked here and whoever made that would of been or should be arrested. I can’t believe children had to go through that
Are you male or female
@@steuk6510 I think snowflake 😂
@ᑭIᗰᑭᒪE ᖴᗩᑕE I understand sympathy, it's just without what was done back then, we wouldn't have information and knowledge we have today. I get that it's messed up but there's really no other way around it
@@flyhacking5830, no don’t justify this bullshit this was unethical expermentation, when the experiments with radiation took place there was information out there showing it’s harmfulness not to mention the unethical nature of doing this without consent from the families.
That is pretty ignorant. The only reason we know what we know today, is (partly) because of experiences like this. And we can't go to those people and arrest them for doing their job, their priority back then was science and learning new things about us as humans. If we want to blame them, we have to look at it from the morals and ethics that we had back then, not the ones we have now. Otherwise every human generation before us would be seen as evil people, which they certainly weren't.
man seeing these types of abandoned places is so bittersweet, they're such beautiful and fascinating buildings but it's horrifying that these types of institutions aren't all that old. people tend to think of asylums as things of the past but even today there are places that treat disabled folks like they're subhuman
Interestingly, there was a prominent Western actress in the 1950s who actually became an advocate for special needs children, Dale Evans Rogers, after her daughter was born with Down Syndrome. They asked if she wanted to put her in an institution, and she said ABSOLUTELY NOT. She and her husband Roy did their best to love and raise her despite the challenges. Tragically her daughter died from health issues a couple years later. She was so moved by the experience that she wrote a book in an effort to get parents and the public to see the beauty of children like this, "Angel Unaware".
Western State in Kentucky
Gave me the creeps when you two walked into that vault. Never do that. What if somebody closed that door?
But very true not alot of people think that way that's why they would be fucked in that kind of situation . Luckily these guys can tell if anyone is around .
I think that way too, but because I'm claustrophobic. Either way, I'm sure they had cell phones. These two appear to be brave souls who will get the shots they need for the sake of their art. I do think they should wear face masks in some of the buildings they enter that have black mold and/or asbestos.
I’ve been here a few times, super surreal place. The steam tunnels are also super cool to check out. The high school when I was there last had an excavator out front and front loaders in the basement I took plenty of pics to keep its history alive if it’s demolished. Some of the area seems to be getting gutted for demo but with COVID everything is stopped. I wish they went to the oil power plant that’s onsite as well it’s a site to see.
omgxginoxrocks man that sucks ass to hear... glad I was able to make it a few times before any demolition.
omgxginoxrocks Not to get off topic, but 1 piece csl lips are the best
This place is similar to the Oregon State Mental Hospital.
It was in the movie called "One Flew Over the Cookoo Nest"
Many psychiatric institutions are similar. Many if not most of them follow the Kirkbride plan or layout (or something similar at least).
Yup yup... Don't forget about the Fairview Training Center,... The outside shots of the property reminded me even more of Fairview, and the distance between some of the cottages,... That is at least until they bulldozed it all.... Before we know it, the land will just be another neighborhood with as many homes crammed into it as possible, and the history, and stories, myths, and legends, will have all but been forgotten...
Really though.... With as bad a history as some of these places across the country had , forgetting them may not be that negative of an outcome.
I've lived down the street from this place for my entire life (22 now). I did some research on the "school" a few months ago as they've started tearing stuff down, and never realized someone was living there until 2014. I've wanted to explore it for a while, but police presence has steadily increased recently. Been watching you guys for a while and never noticed you had a video on it!
The 1800's were weird. It's amazing that this place was allowed to even exist. I feel so bad for the people who had to endure whatever they went through. Great video and hope you guys are staying safe in these times!
More like 1950
more like the 2000s :|
The lack of christmas ornaments recently has really bothered me. But radioactive oatmeal is pretty cool.
I think the upsurge in chairs jus chillin has helped to take up the slack.
@@shorey66 really does ad some nice pizzazz to the place. I like the emoji chairs the best. Its hard for a place to be haunting when there is a chair lookin like :D
This also has a super similar history to dejarnette
Jack Explores I live near the abandoned Dejarnette buildings. I pass by them every time I leave my home town. Very eerie and sad place.
I have been watching this channel for years. I have always liked the fact that they explore but don't vandalize.
Why can't a team go into these places that has slides and other documents be obtained instead of being left to rot? These was human beings like anyone else. They deserve to have their stories told. If I could salvage those important items I would in a heartbeat. I'm sure so much unknown is hidden within those items, if only a group of people took a chance to box everything up to be housed in a safe place. It's horrible these unfortunate souls are just left forgotten.
Their stories maybe forgotten but it only closed in 2014 so their are some that got out due to closure before 2014 that lived to tell the tale. Their families just dumped them so they were probably moved to other facilities and reassesed and released. Released to unpleasant families who agreed to take them back or foster homes for the unfortunate children who's families wouldn't take them back. Adults were living there because after age 18 they had nowhere to go with families that wouldn't help, that had written them off the moment they were admitted to the "school" most of which are probably homeless or a lot more mentally ill then they were (if they ever were) and in adult facilities. So sad. But who would believe them? Their out there alive for some, it's just a matter of finding them. With all those files you could have all the names and find the living ones should anyone want to, but noone will.
Thank you for trying to remind everyone of very recent atrocities in Hope of never repeating.
Grew up near a place like this. Was just reading some of the reports from about 10-15 years ago. Sickening and depressing.
"Check out that door frame!"
"Its probably to jammed to ope..."
*kicks door slightly*
"..."
Makes me sad to see this,my sister was in an institution similar to this...
22:30 That is clearly the optimal placement for a bathtub.
I’ve been watching your videos for years now, and this one brought me to tears. The amount of pain these children felt is harrowing.
Right in my area! I’ve only been able to see a small portion of this place before. Thanks for another unparalleled exploration!
Been to this location a half dozen times. Every building is wide open for entry but be careful police patrols and drone patrol. If you get caught you will get arrested here. But if you dont get caught is one of the craziest places I have ever been to and will go again before it is gone. Thanks for sharing
I've been here!!! One of the first places I've explored. Definitely eerie! if you walk into the woods near one of the entrances where there is tunnels there is a whole other set of buildings and what looks like radiation gear...insane
That’s cool!
"Would you like something warm to drink?"
"Yea sure what do you have?"
"Tea, coffee, and s o u p "
26:29 Michael: "That could fall on our heads right now"
Bryan, unafraid of death: "It could" 😎
My anxiety when they entered the vault👉📈
Ever since I got locked into a closet as a kid a horrific primal fear comes up in me when I go into rooms that could possibly trap me
My anxiety when they entered the building 👉🏼📈
What I wish my stonks were like 👉📈
@@QueenSephy2002 true
@@chanchito4401 true
All I think about while watching y'all explore these places, is the history and what this place looked like during operation. Who were the people inside and who were the doctors and nurses. What were their lives like in this place and when/if they got out. So many questions.
Love your work fellas. Stay safe.
these dudes finna explore the Church of Scientology next I swear
Here we find Tom Cruise-3 in his chamber
@silverbird58 Hubbard's "scopes" do nothing more than measure skin capacitance.
What the hell is “Finna”? It’s “going to”. Maybe you should have been a student at that school?!
Sani C okay boomer
They have a lot of fancy empty buildings
I explored this place alot, and im pretty close by. I find it super cool knowing that i walked the same grounds as you guys! Im really glad you guys were able to check this place out and give it the recognition it deserves.!!!
This gives me Evil Within vibes! The vault of files is like the one in Evil Within that is behind the desk and then, that room with the chair and desk also kind of portrays a room your character ends up in. This was a great episode!
Technically all schools are abandoned now, at least temporarily.
Except staff and maintenance workers..
Except for teachers, vulnerable children and the children of essential workers. Or at least its like that where I am
nah, those are just squatters *dressed* as custodians and other staff members
atleast we all hope its temporary ;-;
They should all be shut permanently. Concentration camps at best these days teaching all kids to be exactly the same and to obey their Government... and are just going to get worse.... no thanks.
Torture of disabled people still happens.
in the US?
Yeah, but it's more common for the abuse to come from the nurses and carers nowadays, instead of kooky experiments done by sadistic doctors.
@@furbees2662 Everywhere.
it's really sad to think that it does. Or that it ever did to begin with.
When I visited my mom in a nursing home found her trapped by her beside table in her own filth because the bed change staff before they could change her got the call to start serving breakfast Well let's say I very loudly voiced my concerns.
you seriously dont understand how happy i am that you uploaded : )
also might sign up to your patreon , i have become so addicted to these videos and thought i would give my own back , these videos are truly amazing .
Are you on the discord server?
@@belugastudios4770 no, i would like to be but im not sure what there server/account is ;(
I would love to look at the documents and books, and watch the slides and videotapes. Must be fascinating.
There is literally nothing creepier than one of those old-timey wheelchairs.
This reminds me of my dad's descriptions of working at the Foxboro State School, just south of there. From what I can tell through Wikipedia, that school has been largely demolished and gentrified, but some buildings remain.
You had me at "dark history"
@dark exploration
Yes!!! Just made a cup of coffee and now this pops up! Thanks lads,❤️❤️
Hi explorer returns 👍
Hello lol
Want to bet the room that was burned had the patients files and medical records along with the pictures? 🤔
On purpose
No more 69 likes
My heart broke from watching this I feel so bad for the people who suffered in this place
I always hate seeing beautiful vintage buildings like this trashed and forgotten. It makes me mad that they'll be left to rot or be completely demolished. Yeah, the history of this place might be horrible, but there is so much that could be saved and reused.
I joined cause i think your channel is worth it, I love everything you do, You're team is "The Proper People" for these explorations.
i seen other explorers come to this place :( it's sad to think about all the kids who didn't even know they were being experimented on! they just thought it was a "science club" its so sad because these kids probably trusted some workers to take care of them!
As always you guys found an incredible place with an extraordinary story! I will say, I'm not a super emotional gal and I don't get anxious or nervous often, this place however hurt my heart. Those ppl having to live there were warriors!