Residents in Newtown, Connecticut have all been to the Newtown Youth Academy, walked the path on Fairfield Hills, drove past the government buildings, but do you really know what used to lie on those grounds? Over 4,000 patients in 16 different buildings in a place called the “Fairfield Hills Hospital”.
Fairfield Hills Hospital performed inhumane treatments such as electric shock therapy, hydrotherapy, psycho-surgery, hip-nailing surgeries and frontal lobotomies.
Opened in 1931, and shut down in 1995 due to overcrowding. There were underground tunnels that lead to confinement rooms, the psycho-surgery laboratories, operating rooms, and a morgue. The facility also included a movie theater, a tennis court, and a gym.
Suicides and “mysterious” deaths were reported while the facility was still open. Different stories of abuse and cruelty were reported. Former workers realized that the boundary of sanity was becoming
“A frequent surgery candidate was one woman who swallowed bobby pins. Or she would swallow spoons, or toothpicks. The nurses wouldn’t find out until she started vomiting. thinner and thinner,” Doctor Robert Grossman, who worked at Fairfield Hills Hospital, said to The Newtown Bee in 2012.
“I must have operated on her ten times, we’d open up her stomach, take it all out. She was a character. She always swore to me after she wouldn’t do it again, but she was a full time job,” Grossman said.
This same patient would also stab herself with bobby pins or safety pins.” People became zombies, with no personalities. It was a sad situation,” Grossman said.
Some patients weren’t even aware they were sick, and they wouldn’t even be aware of themselves.
After the facility was closed several things were done with the remains. The movie “Sleepers” filmed in 1996 was filmed there and so was MTV’s show “Fear” filmed in 2000.
In 2004, Newtown bought it and started to use the old buildings for administrative use. Today, in its place, lies Newtown Youth Academy, Newtown Community Center, A baseball field, The municipal center, and the tax office.
Not all of the buildings have been replaced, but a few of the old buildings remain.
There are reports of light shining through the window during the night time, and an anonymous person reported that “lightning struck inside of the building.”
Every Halloween there are known to be at least 4 state troopers patrolling the area because there are teenagers known to try and break in and vandalize the abandoned facility. “It’s weird, It’s like, creepy. It’s ominous.” NHS sophomore Reid Geissler said. Geissler, himself, has been in the facility.
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