Hidden In The Basement of Danvers State Hospital

What happens when a wall hides more than it should? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore two unsettling, very real stories where history was quietly sealed away—literally and figuratively. First, we descend into the forgotten basement of Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts, where renovation crews in the 1990s uncovered a bricked-over corridor that didn’t exist on any blueprints. Inside were intact treatment rooms, restraint fixtures, and medical equipment from an era psychiatric institutions would rather forget. No records. No documentation. And once discovered, the space was quietly sealed again. Then we shift to a powerful and often overlooked chapter in American medical history: Freedom House Ambulance Service in Pittsburgh. In the 1960s, a group of Black paramedics—trained at an unprecedented level—quietly invented modern emergency medical care. They saved hundreds of lives, revolutionized on-scene treatment, and laid the foundation for today’s EMS systems… before being erased from history when the city took over the program. Along the way, we talk about institutional amnesia, medical ethics, abandoned practices, historical erasure, and why the scariest stories are often the ones that actually happened. Because sometimes the question isn’t what’s haunting a place—It’s what was deliberately forgotten. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(950)

The X-Files Mystery That Actually Happened

The Village Where People Slept for Days and How a DNA Test Solved a 73-Year-Old Missing Child Case. What would you do if people in your town simply... fell asleep without warning? In this editio...

6 Juli 31min

Founding Fathers Gone Wild

What do Benjamin Franklin's naked "air baths," George Washington's near-zombie resurrection, and Lyndon B. Johnson's infamous pants phone call have in common? They're all absolutely true... and they'...

3 Juli 39min

Ghosts Beneath the Basement

Beneath an ancient house in York, England, an apprentice heating engineer wasn't searching for ghosts—he was installing a boiler. Instead, he claimed to witness a column of weary Roman soldiers marchi...

1 Juli 34min

Lost Bodies & Fake Nutmeg

There was a time in America when shipping a dead body by railroad was as routine as sending a trunk of luggage... until somebody misplaced the coffin. In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat a...

29 Juni 34min

Inbox Of Oddities #91

Welcome back to the Inbox of Oddities, where the strangest stories often come from the most fascinating people—our listeners. In this episode, Kat and JG dive into a collection of eerie coincidences, ...

26 Juni 24min

The Great Piano Migration & Ancient Romans In Brazil?

What do a piano frozen in the Yukon wilderness and a possible Roman shipwreck off the coast of Brazil have in common? In this episode of Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro uncover two historical mysteri...

24 Juni 33min

The Acid Bath Killer & The Science of Dying

What happens in the final moments before death? For generations, people who survived near-death experiences have described the same astonishing phenomenon: a vivid, panoramic replay of their lives—com...

22 Juni 35min

Strange Genetics, Stranger Discoveries, and One Tiny Skeleton

What happens when an entire family turns blue... literally? In this Freak Family Favorites episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro revisit one of the most fascinating medical mysteries in Amer...

19 Juni 36min