The S-16 Chronicles: Pt.5 - The Tunnel

One of the great designs of the NS, that I was fortunate to experience early on in my days working on S-16, is the "Tunnel". In fact, I think on our 2nd day, which would have been my first complete day working as an orderly on S-16, I joined Dave McB. and one of the female CNA's (I cannot recall her name so she is hereby dubbed Nancy) for lunch at the cafeteria. Making it all the more entertaining we were accompanied by a couple of patients we were required to escort and return with.

Now, I just assumed, in my 2nd-day-on-the-job naive way, we would walk down the stairs to the front lobby and walk across the grounds to the cafeteria building. Not so, as I quickly found out. Nancy just walked to the main foyer on the 2nd floor and we followed without question. She then pressed the button for the elevator and took us all down to the basement level. She said we would just take the tunnel. Just then, we walked out of the elevator and entered what appeared to be a secret tunnel with a labyrinth like passageway.

The tunnel had obviously been there since the foundation of the hospital was laid back in 1858. I really wasn't sure how long this tunnel was - maybe about 500 feet but it was barely 5 feet wide. The height of the tunnel was barely over my head and every 6 feet or turn in the tunnel there was a wall of support with a passageway cut through. At these points it was much lower in height, so I had to duck my head each time. The turns that came every 6-10 feet were very sharp so you could not see what (or who) might be around every corner you turned. Plus these supportive walls/passageways had a hidden corner to them (again you never knew what or whom might be around the corner).

My first impression of the tunnel was more about its' history and how long it had been there. It was made of stone and painted a plain white. I started to imagine how many patients had been escorted or dragged through this tunnel, especially during the days & years of no anti-psychotic medicine. It must have been a horrific scene on occasion. I also wondered what was originally at the end of the tunnel in the 19th century. You see, when I started working at the NS, the tunnel ended and joined a newer more expansive tunnel that lead to the cafeteria. But what had been down there before the tunnel was connected to another newer tunnel? A dungeon of sorts? Maybe there was a place where the Asylum staff kept the criminally insane? I never did find out.

Now, the tunnel was used primarily for pedestrian thoroughfare and delivery by cart of fresh hospital linen and cafeteria food for the patients confined to their wards.

During the daytime, the tunnel was fine, but when you were working the over night shift and headed by yourself to the cafeteria, the tunnel almost took on its' scary persona. The lighting in the tunnel at night time was very dim, so as I walked through it, my shadow would, at times, preceded my pace. If you happen to lose yourself in your thoughts while rounding the corner of the tunnel, sometimes your own shadow could scare the hell out of you. There was always that creepy reminder that someone could be just around the corner. What if a patient found themselves off the unit (it had happened before) and was lurking in the basement tunnel? What if...?

Now, I do not scare that easily, but the tunnel was able to achieve the near impossible. Most times I wouldn't even think about the tunnel while I was walking through. Chances are, my mind was in some other place thinking about my dying Mother, or gabbing away with another staff member. But the times I was focused on the tunnel, that "what if..." fear was always lurking in my mind as my shadows travelled the walls of the tunnel ahead of me. Those were the moments when I walked VERY briskly through the tunnel. The quicker I got out of there, the better.

Now that the old building at the NS is gone from its foundation, I wonder what happened to the tunnel. There is now another newer building on the grounds of the old building. Maybe the tunnel is still there, buried under this newer building. Buried along with all of its' memories. Buried along with every scary thought it induced. Buried, but not forgotten.