The mental hospital which was used in the 1975 cult film that helped launch Jack Nicholson's career, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, has unearthed the remains of 3,500 people.
Politicians visiting in the dilapidating, 128-year-old hospital discovered the cremated ashes in 2004 in a number of corroding copper cannisters in the storage area they dubbed 'the room of forgotten souls'.
Now, in an attempt to find out who the thousands of ashes belong to, Oregon State Hospital has published online the names, birthdays and dates of death of patients who passed away between 1914 and the 1970s.
Some of the copper canisters had fused together after years of neglect, making it even more difficult to match the remains to the deceased.
When One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest screened it caused an outrage, leading many to question the state of psychiatric help in America.
The movie was filmed at Oregon State Hospital because that had been the setting of the 1962 novel, written by Ken Kesey.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Cuckoo's Nest hospital discovers 3,500 cremated remains in "room of forgotten souls."
From Daily Mail:
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2 comments:
Really, really sad. Who were all of those people? Didn't anyone on the outside care about them?
So awful that mental illness and retardation carried so strong a stigma that these people were institutionalized and forgotten by their families...
(I used to work with people who suffered from mental illness, so this strikes a nerve.)
It's horrible. If we thought One Flew.. was disturbing, it's scary to think what the hospital it was based on was really like.
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