Urban Legend of Glenn Dale Hospital

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Glenn Dale Hospital

Many urban legends get passed down to others from information people hear, read, and experience on their own. Stories get manipulated and exaggerated over time and reasons for the story’s existence can vary. The true story of Glenn Dale Hospital appears to be rather clear according to credible sources – but this does not stop people from creating their own myths and legends and believing what others tell them is true.

The story was told to me by a white female college sophomore that I have known for many years. We happened to be back home over the same weekend and I happened to be on the hunt for an urban legend; luckily she was eager to tell me about her experience trying to visit Glenn Dale Hospital. The following is the story I was told, as close to verbatim as possible:

I remember it was Freshman year [in high school] and all the upper class lacrosse girls told us to meet at one of the girl’s houses because we were going to go to a party. We met up there, and got into three different cars and started driving. The van I was in had 6 other girls in it and I was pretty good friends with the senior driving it so it didn’t take long for the senior to tell us that we weren’t really going to a party – and that we were going to go visit an abandoned insane asylum. I had never heard of Glenn Dale Hospital and the entire trip, we were told of how many unexplainable deaths used to occur at the hospital and how if you go there today, you can still hear the screams of the patients throughout the halls. I don’t remember what road we ended up on, but next thing I knew – it was all of us freshman walking through a long field seeing a large building in front of us. The closer we got… the slower we walked. We started talking about everything we had heard in the trip up. One girl mentioned that there are still bodies and papers left in the hospital and that the place was abandoned after the workers refused to keep working there after so many inexplicable deaths. Another mentioned that there are always cops patrolling the place and you can get arrested for trespassing. Ironically, as soon as the girl finished talking about the cop, we heard a loud voice from the other side of the building.

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