At Cuckoo's Nest Facility, 3,500 Forgotten Remains

Officials contact kin of patients at Nurse Ratched's stomping grounds
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 1, 2011 1:43 AM CST
Cuckoo's Nest Facility Tracks 3,500 Mystery Remains
Urns containing the unclaimed ashes of deceased inmates at the Oregon State Hospital are shown in this photo taken on Thursday, March 10, 2005.   (AP Photo/Greg Wahl-Stephens)

The remains some 3,500 patients of an Oregon mental hospital used as a stand-in for the sadistic facility in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest have sat in a storage area for years—and officials have published the names of patients who died at the hospital between 1917 through the '70s in an attempt to reunite them with their families, reports the BBC. Some 120 canisters have already been claimed by relatives; officials have been able to identify all but four of the forgotten souls. The decrepit Oregon State Hospital was closed 3 years ago after a rash of diseases and hundreds of patient-on-patient attacks.
(More One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest stories.)

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