X-ray Creature

Looks safe Now

AH! Scary!

Looks like a friend for the Ventilator.

There is nothing exciting or beautiful about this place. I like the older buildings so much better.

Hello Mr. Motts love your work and I have a quick question. Why are there so many abandoned hospitals with equipment still in them? This seems so wasteful. Especially with all the fan fair over health care facility cost. I can understand in the case of a building that is to be abandon only temporarily and then returned to. But a lot of these places have set with the equipment in them for decades just to rot.

I do have to say that as i write this the same could be said for the building itself. Well at any rate this dose provide the subject for your wonderful picture's and in that these old things get new life. Well if you or any one in here know the answer to this i would love to know just curious.

I totally agree Jackie B!!! Thanks for the gallery anyway, Mr. Motts. ;)

(being a tech person I have to put my two cents in) Also with technology always advancing, you know that soon after you purchase something yourself (like a phone, computer, fax or printer) it becomes obsolete because something newer, better and cheaper has come out. So if all this equipment has been used for awhile and then just left, it's probably because newer, more advanced models have come out and it's cheaper to buy new than to pay to have the old stuff moved or stored.

Personally, I would love to have the space to collect this stuff and preserve it rather than have it rot away, but that's only because I'm also a pack rat.

Thanks Motts and thanks eldokid@aol.com.

I suspect organizations are just being wasteful.. one hospital I worked for had to shut down their obstetrics unit years ago but all of the equipment and supplies for delivering babies is still there, unused. Even bigger waste when we're talking about huge pieces of equipment like the x-ray machine.

Folks, much of this stuff, is leased they become obsolete, parts no longer available etc. The leasing company simply writes it off, in most cases it never actually belonged to the facility. The blue tubing and humidifier etc should of been biohazard bagged, (red bag), I bet when this place did close down, this patient could of been one of the last transferred out, long term "vent" beds are not easy to come by. Thats really the sad part of this great photo. Mott's thank you for the new galleries.

Many of these places were publicly funded. If I had to guess, I'd say elected officials shut them down for budget cuts and quietly let them fade away. Employees are gone, expenditures stop, funds are shifted to the intended pockets, biohazard disposal fees are avoided, and the facility is then ignored. Later, after decay and blight take over, there is no public outrage when the "horrible eyesore" is then relayed to developers in phase 2 of the pocket-lining procedure. Their money did not equip these facilities, they have no reason to care.

Really like the photos and composition Motts. This building certainly has a different "feel" than the others do, but still neat to watch. It sort of instills the feeling of interest/wonderment about the past in me, as opposed to the horror/chills of the other buildings. I'm sure more knowledge would dispel beth feelings, but that is lost to history...

A brief pet peeve of mine though...The amount of radioactive material sitting around the US in places just like this constitutes a serious threat to national security. If simple photographers(no disrespect intended) or vandals can get in then so can terrorists, both foreign and domestic. This reality is the pink elephant of our national security that no one wants to address. It is far easier to create a "dirty bomb" with these leftover materials than to create an actual nuclear device.

Thank you for restricting information about specific locations, both in your posted info, and in the comments. (I know this isn't for the purpose of national security, but more so due to liability or so others don't get hurt. Thanks anyway though. :) )

Parts of this photo do look like they could be from an old x-ray machine --- other parts???
FYI = x-ray machines are not dangerous if they are not plugged in, turned on, rotor started, and exposure switch activated. Otherwise x-ray techs (and even housecleaning staff) would not have lengthy careers due to their premature deaths.
Old radiation therapy machines (for treating cancer) could be dangerous if the radiation source has not been removed. Even then, unless the containment system were compromised, they are not dangerous. Employees have to be able to be safe while working around these machines --- positioning patients, cleaning, etc.