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An abandoned psychiatric hospital that once housed the District of Columbia’s most mentally troubled residents has now become an abandoned wasteland.

Constructed in 1925, the 200-acre, 22-building Forest Haven asylum in Laurel, Maryland, was closed in 1991 when its final 15 patients were moved to a newer, more up-to-date treatment center, Barcroft reports.

Ohio-based urban explorer Johnny Joo captured the chilling photos as he ventured inside the gloomy asylum to document its status. What he found was something out of a horror movie.

“It was definitely one of the more haunting feelings I have experienced while exploring a place,” Joo said.

The photos paint a terrifying portrait of what the deteriorating buildings have now become.

A stretcher stands in the middle of a desolate hallway. Old wheelchairs and rusty hospital beds now occupy once-filled rooms, as patient records lie scattered on the floor.

“The size of the complex was insane, as I hopped from building to building, each one being massive itself, knowing that there were still 15, 14, 13, that lie ahead to be explored, I loved it.”

As he made his way from room to room, Joo was able to discover some interesting things that helped him understand what the hospital was once like.

“I had stumbled across old paperwork from former patients, beds with names above them and old surgical and dental tools, along with some other equipment, including gynecologist tools,” Joo said.

“Some of these things let me really see into these past lives and how patients were handled, including some bathtubs latched with restraints.”

A class-action lawsuit was filed against Forest Haven, a name that had become synonymous with abuse, in 1976 claiming its grounds were unfit to house patients.

In 1978, the Department of Justice joined the suit, ultimately forcing the district to relocate the hospital’s residents and begin the largest overhaul its mental health system has ever had.

Over the next 15 years, patients were moved to group homes where they would be able to receive the attention and treatment that had been denied.

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