I had often heard of friends visiting abandoned hospitals and insane asylums. Ones that were placed deep back in woods that were surrounded by "no trespassing" signs. I heard that it was awesome and it was a trip that I needed to take. At first I pushed it to the back of my mind, too busy to drive to see a building that has been closed down for years... Until a few weeks ago when one Saturday my friends and I decided to see what all the hype was about and explore Forest Haven Mental Institution in Laurel, Maryland.
Forest Haven was closed on October 14, 1991 due to numerous suspicious and undocumented deaths, incidences involving sexual, physical, and mental abuse, limited funding, and understaffing. Some have said that once you were committed to Forest Haven, the only way out was to die.
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Our adventure started when we pulled our car off onto a dirt shoulder along the road. From where we parked there were no abandoned buildings to be seen. We were on the side of a busy freeway with an old run-down bar across the street. However, we headed toward the estimated direction, along a chain-link fence, and then into the woods. We walk about a half-mile or so and then Forest Haven comes into sight. We approach the old run down main building with awe. It is a huge brick building with the majority of its glass windows shattered. We head inside the front door where there is rubble everywhere. The air is humid and a musty smell lingers throughout. The ceilings are crumbling away; filing cabinets and rusty hospital beds are strewn carelessly throughout the hallways and rooms and spray painted artwork covers the walls.
It was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. Each room you walked in had a different spectacular sight to observe. We saw dentist chairs, old-school Pepsi machines, an abandoned church and pretty much everything in between. Since the building has been closed since the 90’s, there have been many, many more visitors before us so everything was been picked threw, things thrown away and broken. But there were still things to be discovered. We flipped through old medical journals, looked for old patient files, and climbed stairs that probably shouldn’t have been climbed. An abandoned mental institution like Forest Haven really makes you feel like an explorer, as corny as that sounds. We walked through fallen debris looking for a hidden treasure and overturned everything we found, everywhere, from the bathrooms to the cafeterias.
When we left I felt a sense of wonderment, but also one of uneasiness. After scavenging through all those rooms, it's hard not to think about what happened in that hospital. Why was it so neglected when it was open and why do people choose to visit it to this day?
We always think of the new stores coming to the mall or the fancy bar that just opened downtown but we never think to explore places that get no attention, the ones that are just sitting there waiting to be found.
