4,537 Comments for Pennhurst State School

Randar, there is actually a reason for this. People with motor impairments walk more easily on hard, even surfaces. As soon as they start to walk on softer surfaces, such as mats, rugs, grass, dirt, etc., there isn't as much perfectly flat surface for their feet and their systems can't accommodate or make up for the lack of evenness and they are more likely to fall. It is difficult for people who walk well and naturally to understand exactly how much balancing and counterbalancing we do just walking across the room. The unimpaired human body has a system that knows how to adjust constantly and unconsciously to tiny variations in most surfaces and make walking across these surfaces look smooth and effortless. This is not the case for people with motor impairments, where even the slightest change in surface forces the person to either stop and try to adjust to the surface change or to lose balance. I know I am not saying that very elegantly, but that's the basic gist of the thing. So if you have motor impairments and walk on grass, rugs, mats, etc., you are much more likely to fall.

The people with the greatest risk of falling usually wear helmets, knee pads, and elbow pads to prevent serious injury when they fall, so the cement surface isn't as big an issue there, but falling and hitting hard furniture on the way down is always a problem, so softer furniture, both to sit on and to bump against, makes sense.

We have tried setting up mats beside the beds of people who are more likely to fall when they get out of bed at night, but it makes it much more difficult for them to find their balance when they step on one, especially if they have just woken and are groggy. Today's solution is generally a silent bed alarm for people who get up at night (to alert staff to come assist them to walk), good shoes (for daytime), soft or padded furniture, helmets and knee or elbow pads, and gait belts for staff to assist people when they walk. It's better than putting them in a wheelchair prematurely, which would also keep them safe but is a bad idea for multiple reasons. Of course, people ARE safer if they are forced to stay in wheelchairs to avoid being injured, but then . . . :-)

As far as rugs, rugs actually are more difficult to walk on because there is generally a soft pad underneath, so the surface isn't flat. If you use a rug you end up increasing falls so people can have a nicer surface to land on, but that doesn't really make sense when you look at it that way. It is also more difficult for people to move their wheelchairs across floors with rugs, and you don't want to decrease the mobility and independence of people who use wheelchairs.

Area rugs are an idea, but they are an incredibly high source of injuries because people have a hard time adjusting to the change in surface from hard floor to soft rug and back. And finally you have the entire matter of sanitation, as many of the people who live in these settings have issues with incontinence.

Hey, ~Me - does that qualify as a rant? ;-)

And I thought I was a slob!

Why is it pictures in black and white always take on a much more ominous feel to them? Seeing this building in nothing but the basic greys, blacks, and whites makes it seem so alone, so forgotten, so hidden.

People get bored, have no respect for the past, and are out looking for a quick fun time. I don't personally understand the purpose of attempting to burn down such a building of this nature, even if the history of this place isn't all rainbows and butterflies and happy days.

Ironic. They provide "safety chairs" to prevent patients from injuring themselves, yet they create a playroom in a cement-encased basement. Makes perfect sense.

Such a sterile and unwelcoming "play room". Hard walls to run into, hard floors to fall onto, scary murals, limited natural lighting. Scary and sad.

You are absolutely right. There are 2 sides to every story and one side of the story has sadly been misrepresented. The closing of Pennhurst was all about politics. The State of Pa no longer wanted to be in the business of caring for the mentally retarded. These lawsuits were absurd and could have been won by the state if they chose to put the money into fighting them They took a way out which was costly but not as costly as to continue to run large institutions. There is much you do not know about working in understaffed institutions. Unfortunately the staff never got to defend themselves against accusations that simply were not true. Reporters can write what they want, put their own slant on things...this is nothing new. This was the start of sensationalism journalism. The reason why many people who worked at Pennhurst say it wasn't that bad is because it wasn't. The people that worked there were not ogres ready to punce on poor defensless people. If you believe that you are sadly misinformed.

linfield local, go here all the time. its illeagal tho, but thats what makes it fun

I was in this building, and there are what appears to be chemical barrels in a room to the right. The name of the barrel started with a C...any one with info, please contact me at outlineinblack@yahoo.com

Good point, Mandie. It's interesting that so many people are upset about what happened in these places in the past (as they should be) but you don't see the same fervor to get folks with handicaps included in the mainstream today. It has only been in the past few years that you could see someone with a handicap of any sort included in advertisements (even something as simple as someone sitting in a wheelchair), and that is still quite rare. I would feel better about people's indignation about the "old days" if I knew that today they were involved in volunteer activities with folks with disabilities, that they made sure that people with disabilities were welcome in their communities, and that they made sure that children with disabilities of any sort were never ridiculed or left out in their schools.

It's good to point out how bad things used to be, but the pointing needs to include another hand *in the present* reaching out to include these folks.

[Ack! Sorry! This must be my "moral indignation" day! I need to jump down off my soapbox before someone pushes me off real hard! ]

Labotomies.

I just want to say that your pictures are beautiful. They capture so much of what Pennhurst really was, and how depressing it is to visit today. I went up with some friends at night, around 12, and it was by far the scariest, most depressing thing in the world. We were only in the power house, near Penn Hall, on the otherside of the buildings still used today. It is just utterly amazing.

Amazing. It captures the beauty and the eeriness that is Pennhurst.

Has anybody noticed the girl in the wheelchair in the painting or is it just me? Kinda of weird maybe they were treaching these children that they werent so different from outsiders?

why would babies be at pennhurst anyways? And what ever happened to the workers there wee they found guilty or did they get off scott free? that just makes me want to kick their a**es!