MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries - Ep. 6 | Blood Feast

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

One night in 1944, over 300 patients at a mental hospital in Oregon become violently sick after eating dinner. Many of them die. An investigation is quickly launched to determine the source of this deadly illness. Was there something wrong with the food itself? Or could it have been the work of a deranged killer?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge episodes 49 to 56 right now and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. In 1944, a doctor covered a deceased patient's body with a sheet and then wheeled their stretcher out into the hallway. The morgue at the Oregon State Hospital was already full, so the doctor planned to put this body in the chapel. But when he pushed open the chapel doors, there were already so many stretchers with dead patients with sheets on them inside that there was no room for this patient.

The doctor closed the chapel's heavy wooden doors and just stood there, his mind racing. More than 400 patients had fallen violently ill in the past 12 hours, and dozens had died. The doctor had no idea what the cause was, and if he couldn't figure it out, he knew more bodies would be joining the ones already lining the inside of the chapel. Hey, this is Nick. And this is Jack. And we just launched a brand new podcast called The Best Idea Yet. You may have heard of it.

It's all about the untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Ballin Studios and Wondery, I'm Mr. Ballin, and this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, where every week we will explore a new baffling mystery originating from the one place we all can't escape, our own bodies. If you liked today's story, please invite the follow button on an African safari, but before you go, make sure you sneak 27 raw steaks into their backpack.

This week's story is called Blood Feast. It was late in the afternoon on November 18, 1942. A cook named Mickey McKillop opened the lid of a giant metal vat, then asked his volunteer sous chef, 27-year-old George Nosen, to carry it over to an industrial oven. Mickey and George were starting to prepare dinner for almost 500 patients across five wards at the Oregon State Hospital, a public mental facility for psychiatric patients. Tonight's menu was scrambled egg yolks and toast, and Mickey, along with his boss, Mary O'Hare, were the only two cooks on duty. The hospital had been

understaffed for a year now, ever since the United States entered World War II. Many members of the nursing staff had left to volunteer for the war effort. During the day, there was about one attendant for every 16 patients, but at night, that number swelled to one attendant for every 150 patients. Mickey and Mary were so desperate for help in the kitchen that they had started asking trustworthy patients to help them prep for each meal. And one of those trustworthy patients was Mickey's volunteer sous chef, George Nosen.

George placed a frozen 16-pound canister of eggs onto the countertop beside the oven. Mickey liked George, and he felt a little sorry for him too. George's parents had originally brought him to the hospital for help with his epilepsy, which is a disorder of the brain characterized by repeated seizures. At this time, people were just beginning to understand how epilepsy actually worked. George's parents most likely saw it as a mental condition, which is why they brought him to the state hospital.

They probably didn't think he was crazy, they just wanted help with getting his seizures under control. But during George's initial evaluation, the staff psychologist would diagnose George with paranoid schizophrenia, and then they had George involuntarily committed for life. Mickey didn't understand how that was possible. He'd never seen George hallucinate or get aggressive like the other patients with schizophrenia, but there was nothing he could do about it. And if he was being honest with himself, he was glad to have someone so mild-mannered and easygoing to help him in the kitchen. Mickey yanked the lid off the canister that George had just set down, revealing hundreds

of thawing egg yolks. These days, a lot of the hospital's food supply came from federal surplus deliveries, since the government was rationing food to help the war effort. The egg whites were used in food that was sent overseas, and hospitals stateside got the leftover yolks. It was time to start cooking, so Mickey dumped out the canister into the metal vat. He repeated the process two more times until the stovetop was crowded with thawing eggs. He handed George a cup and asked for water, and then he lit the stovetop so the eggs would warm faster. He let George dump the water into the vat, then the two of them started slicing bread loaves. Once they were done, Mickey turned on the oven and laid all the bread

slices across the metal grates to be toasted. Then he turned his attention back to the eggs. They were finally thawed, so Mickey asked George to grab some powdered milk. It was the only thing that made the egg yolks creamy enough to scramble. As Mickey stirred the eggs, he sent George to fetch something else, Postum powder, a caffeine-free coffee substitute they'd been getting from the government over the past year. Mickey even let George mix the drink himself. He'd never let a patient touch an actual dinner item before, so Mickey took a quick sip just to be safe. The Postum tasted like chalk, which meant it was made correctly. He clapped George on the back and told him he'd done a great job. But that momentary taste test distracted Mickey just long enough for the eggs to start burning.

Mickey cussed as he turned off the stovetop, wondering how to fix this. He threw in a palm full of salt and then gave the eggs a stir, and then they looked good as new. When dinner was finally done, Mickey and George portioned the eggs and toast into buffet dishes and then loaded them onto a big cart for delivery at each of the five dining halls spread across the hospital's wards. By the time they got to Ward 5, hungry patients lined the hallway outside the cafeteria, urging Mickey and George to please hurry up. Finally, a bell rang and the lines began to move. From behind the buffet table, Mickey watched as the patients ladled scrambled eggs onto their plates. He helped

serve them each a piece of toast and then sent the patients to sit at the long metal tables that ran the length of the dining hall. And as the patients all dug into their food, Mickey heard someone call out that the eggs were too salty. Mickey winced and felt bad because he knew he very well could have over-salted them. And while Mickey was worrying about the eggs, another patient in the room took a long swig of Postum and then started to choke. One of the nurses walked over to pat the patient on the back, but instead of swallowing, the patient keeled over and threw up on the nurse's shoes. The nurse shrieked and Mickey looked over and saw a red streak on the ground.

It took him a second to realize that it wasn't vomit, it was blood. The patient then fell backwards onto the floor and those around him began to scream. The nurse bent over and tried to steady the man, who was now having a seizure on the floor. Mickey ran over to help her, but before he could make it, another patient sent a spray of red blood shooting across the table. Mickey shouted for everyone to stop eating, but his warning came too late. More patients began throwing up blood. Others collapsed onto the floor, writhing in pain. Mickey didn't know what to do, so he just tried to catch patients as they fell. One nurse ran into the hallway and sounded an

alarm. Mickey stooped over a patient who was clawing at his own face, saying he couldn't feel it. His lips were swollen and blue. He tried to help the man return to his seat, but the man collapsed back down to the floor and started saying that his legs were paralyzed. Mickey was totally horrified and his hands trembled with fear and he had no idea what could cause this terrible reaction people were having. Dr. William Lidbeck had just finished dinner when his phone rang at his home on the hospital grounds. When he picked it up, all he heard on the other end was screaming and shouting. Then a panic-stricken nurse got on the line and begged him to run up to the hospital. Patients across four of the five wards were collapsing,

they were vomiting blood, and now losing feeling in their faces and limbs. Dr. Lidbeck dropped his fork, ran out his front door, and tore across the lawn, heading for the side entrance of the main hospital building, a hundred yards from his cottage. With every step, the screaming he could hear grew louder. It sounded like every patient inside of the building was in agony. Moments later, the doctor flung the door open and stepped into the hallway, and the scene that greeted him was horrible. The hallway was full of patients sitting on the floor with their backs up against the wall, coughing blood into their laps. One man had been strapped to a gurney in the hallway,

spasming wildly, blood running down the front of his shirt. His entire mouth was swollen and drool collected at the side of his lips. A nurse ran into the hallway and beckoned Dr. Lidbeck to come quickly. He followed her through a doorway into the cafeteria where he saw dozens of patients writhing on the floor. The nurse that Dr. Lidbeck had followed dashed ahead of him. She knelt down beside one of the patients and started spoon-feeding him baking soda. Dr. Lidbeck caught up to her and asked what was going on. She admitted that the nursing staff had no idea what had caused this outbreak, but it had started right after the patients had begun their dinner. She didn't know how to reverse it, but she was just hoping that baking soda would help alleviate their stomach pain. The entire staff was running around in complete panic, trying to manage symptoms. Dr. Lidbeck took a deep breath

and tried to push down his rising fear. He'd never dealt with sudden illness on such a massive scale, but he knew that he couldn't do anything without the proper equipment. He had to get his medicine bag from his office on the second floor. He instructed the nurse to keep working, then ran out of the cafeteria and down the hallway. He turned the corner into the third ward, where the scene was exactly the same. It was full of patients covered in their own blood, writhing on the floor. Dr. Lidbeck had always prided himself on having a steely stomach, but this felt unbearable to watch. He rushed through the hallway, stepping over sick patients as he went, and ran up the stairs to the second floor. But as he left the stairwell, he stopped dead in his tracks. The atmosphere in this ward

was completely different. The hallway was empty. If it weren't for the screams echoing from downstairs, it would almost feel peaceful. As he walked past open doors, he saw all the patients tucked in their beds. They looked scared but seemed to be otherwise fine. Dr. Lidbeck was confused. How was this ward so calm when the rest were full of chaos and vomiting patients? A door opened at the end of the hallway and the ward's head nurse, Allie Wassil, stepped out and walked toward him. Dr. Lidbeck thought she looked really pale. The nurse seemed very relieved to see Lidbeck, and she would tell him that she thought there had to be something wrong with the eggs from dinner.

She said she had taken one bite and they had tasted so spoiled that she ordered all her patients not to eat them, and so her patients were fine, but she had been throwing up ever since. A chill ran through Dr. Lidbeck. He didn't know yet what was causing his patients to vomit blood, but now he knew it very likely had to be related to the eggs. It was the only thing all the patients had eaten that night, but it couldn't just be a case of spoiled food. An egg would have to be so rotten to cause this that it never would have been served in the first place. It would have been obviously bad. Then a realization dawned on him. If the eggs themselves were fine, it meant that something else had been put in the eggs that night.

He was glad that Nurse Wassil had not eaten more of them. Dr. Lidbeck told the head nurse that if she started feeling worse, to please come find him right away, and then the doctor ran back downstairs to tend to the sick patients. As Dr. Lidbeck went down a hallway, he passed by the hospital morgue. A nurse was wheeling a cupboard stretcher inside. One of the patients had died. Dr. Lidbeck's blood ran cold, but he didn't have time to stop and mourn. There were hundreds of other patients still waiting for treatment, and so he didn't have a moment to lose. Your phone buzzes and you look down to find this alert. What do you do next? Maybe you're at the grocery store. Or maybe you're with your secret lover. Or maybe you're robbing a bank.

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Incoming is a hilariously thrilling podcast that will leave you wondering, how would you spend your last few minutes on Earth? You can binge Incoming exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+, and the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. About 16 hours later, in the late morning of November 19th, Oregon Governor Charles Sprague raced along the highway in his car. An hour earlier,

Sprague had heard about last night's outbreak at the state hospital. Now he was on the way to the state capitol, where an emergency state board of control meeting would soon commence. From the moment the United States had entered the war, Sprague feared a morning like this. He was worried that the outbreak at the hospital was caused by sabotage, that the country's enemies had deliberately tampered with these eggs. He knew that the Oregon State Hospital received food rations from the government. The frozen eggs had been part of a shipment to the hospital six months ago. But those eggs had been separated from a much larger batch. It was entirely possible that someone had poisoned that larger supply, which was then

sent around to various institutions throughout the country. Sprague worried that if someone had tampered with the egg supply, anywhere that had received eggs from that batch would suffer a similar attack. Sprague shuddered at the thought of a spy for the Axis powers poisoning innocent Americans. The Food and Drug Administration had already ordered all institutions that received these eggs to immediately stop using them. Sprague's driver stopped the car outside the front steps of the Capitol building. Once Sprague got out, he was greeted by an aide, who walked with him up the stairs. The aide had just received word from the hospital.

As of 10.30 that morning, 47 patients had died, and their bodies were still lining the hospital. As of 10.30 that morning, 47 patients had died and their bodies were still lining the hospital hallways and another 350 patients were violently ill. As governor, Sprague needed to make sure that investigators had the resources necessary to investigate the egg tampering and find out who was behind it. He told the aide that he'd be a few minutes late to the meeting, then headed for his office to call the chief of police in Salem, Oregon, where the state hospital was located. Later that afternoon, the superintendent of the hospital, Dr. John Evans, stood in front of a cage of rats in a laboratory. He was holding a plate full of scrambled eggs. Earlier that morning,

a coroner had requested permission to perform autopsies on the patients who had died. Dr. Evans allowed him to take six of the dead, hoping the autopsy results could tell him what had happened. A few hours after the coroner had taken the bodies, Dr. Evans received a toxicology report that confirmed his worst fear. The patients had been poisoned. However, nobody knew yet what they were poisoned with or how. The coroner was still running tests. But that was why Dr. Evans was now holding a plate full of the contaminated scrambled eggs that had been served the night before. He was running his own experiment. On a neighboring table, there was another cage of rats and another plate of eggs. But these eggs came straight from one of the egg yolk canisters still in the freezer. A lab technician had thawed them out that morning. They reasoned that if only the first cage of rats died, that meant the poison had been added into

the eggs at the hospital. But if both cages of rats died, it meant the eggs themselves had been poisoned before they were shipped to the hospital, and tens of thousands of people could be in danger. Dr. Evans placed each plate of eggs into their respective cages and then waited for the rats to eat. A moment later, the rats in the first cage began to shake violently and foam at the mouth. They squealed in pain and within minutes, all of them were dead. Dr. Evans looked over at the other cage and saw those rats were just fine. The experiment had worked. It confirmed this wasn't a case of mass contamination or widespread enemy conspiracy.

The eggs were clearly just fine when they arrived at the hospital before something or someone poisoned them. But it also meant there could be a mass murderer inside the hospital who was the one who added the poison. Enraged and disgusted, Dr. Evans called the police. Three days later, on November 22nd, head nurse Allie Wassel, who had ordered her patients not to eat the eggs, sat in Dr. Lidbeck's office speaking to a barrel-chested detective. The investigators had been interviewing every patient and member of staff for the past two days trying to determine who poisoned the eggs. Further testing had revealed that the poison was sodium fluoride, better known as cockroach poison. Detectives had even found some in a basement storeroom,

but what they didn't know was how it had gotten into the eggs or who had done it. Allie wanted to help, but she told the detective that she hadn't seen anything suspicious. Until that horrible dinner, she'd been on duty taking care of patients. She watched the detective as he scribbled something down on a notepad, and she started to feel nervous. Allie assured the detective that the other nurses would confirm her story, too. The detective wrote a few more things down and then looked up at Allie and thanked her for her time and told her she was free to go. Allie breathed a sigh of relief and stood up to leave. As she reached the door, the detective told an officer standing outside to bring in the next person to be interviewed, assistant cook Mickey McKillop.

Allie passed Mickey as she was walking down the hallway. He was waiting in a chair outside the office, bouncing his leg up and down. Allie couldn't help but think that he looked anxious, or like a man who was hiding something. By late that same evening, Mickey McKillop had been in Dr. Lidbeck's office for hours. The detective had asked him the same few questions over and over, pressing him about the way the kitchens were run. Mickey thought he'd kept his story straight, but he'd told it so many times now that it was hard to be sure and he knew he was likely starting to confuse the details. All Mickey wanted to do was sleep. He had a migraine that was making it hard to focus, but every time he closed his eyes,

the detective would shake him awake. And so Mickey was feeling like he would do just about anything to make this interview end. It was obvious the police were suspicious of him, and Mickey knew they would not give up until he, Mickey, told the police what they needed to know. So Mickey decided it was time to come clean. Mickey sat up in the stiff wooden chair, and while avoiding eye contact with the detective, Mickey would admit that he did know more than he had told them. Mickey said that he could tell them exactly who had poisoned the eggs. In fact, he had watched it happen, and worst of all, he had not done a thing to stop it. An hour later, Mickey and his boss, Mary O'Hare, were being led from the Oregon State Hospital in handcuffs.

A police officer read the charges. Mickey was charged with manslaughter. Mary was charged with accessory after the fact. Then the officer loaded them into a police van. Mickey took one last look at the hospital and caught a glimpse of a few patients staring out the windows, terrified looks on their faces. One of the faces he recognized was George Nosen, the psychiatric patient who volunteered in the kitchen. Mickey shook his head. He knew that what he had just told the detectives would change George's life forever.

When Mickey the cook finally told the truth to detectives, he began by telling them about the terrible evening the sickness broke out. While the nursing staff was running around treating all these patients who were vomiting up blood, Mickey saw George and Osen cowering in the hallway and suddenly Mickey had a terrible thought. He grabbed George and asked him to retrace his steps from that afternoon. Mickey and George mimed preparing the eggs, getting the frozen yolks, lighting the stove, getting some water to help warm them. Then Mickey followed George down the kitchen steps in search of the powdered milk that made the eggs creamy. At the bottom of the steps, there were two storeroom doors. Instinctively, Mickey leaned toward the

storeroom on the left, which held dry goods, but George led him to the storeroom on the right, which held fruits and vegetables. Mickey felt an icy chill run through him. He watched George turn the key and open the right door. George pointed to a large, unmarked tin canister sitting on the ground inside. It was open and filled with white powder. A scoop was sticking out of the powder like it had just been used. Mickey's stomach dropped, but he tried to look unbothered. He thanked George and sent him to his room. Then he ran back upstairs and grabbed his boss, Mary,

and showed her the canister George had just pointed out. Mary went white as a sheet. It was against the rules for Mickey to have given keys to a patient. Mary told Mickey that she did understand why he'd done it. They were so understaffed, he'd been desperate for help. But if anyone found out, they were both done for, and so they agreed to keep it a secret. Mary had kept her promise and said nothing,

but Mickey eventually broke and told the story to the detective in Dr. Mary had kept her promise and said nothing, but Mickey eventually broke and told the story to the detective in Dr. Lidbeck's office. Once the detective got Mickey's confession, they knew who had poisoned the eggs at the Oregon State Hospital and how they had done it. That fateful night, George had taken the keys to the storeroom and headed down to the basement. But he went into the wrong storeroom. He went into the right door, and he brought back a heaping scoop of white powder that he believed was powdered milk, but it wasn't. He then poured that white powder into a vat of scrambled eggs,

and in doing so, George had accidentally poisoned his fellow patients with sodium fluoride, aka cockroach poison. To this day, nobody knows why the poison was kept in that storeroom with the fruits and vegetables. In adults, a lethal dosage of sodium fluoride is just 5 to 10 grams, which is a bit more than what you'd find in a sugar packet. Well, George had accidentally spiked the eggs with five pounds of poison. In the end, the charges against Mickey the cook and his boss, Mary, were dismissed. The hospital was held liable since the real culprit was gross understaffing. The only person who suffered any real consequences for the mistake was George, who was unable to leave

Oregon State Hospital for another 41 years. George was never the same after that night. He couldn't forgive himself for what he'd done, even if it was just a tragic mistake. The patients who remembered the outbreak bullied him relentlessly for decades. And after a while, George started fighting back. He got into physical brawls on multiple occasions. And then in 1983, he got into a big altercation with an older inmate, and during it, George was severely injured and died as a result. From Ballin Studios and Wondery, this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, hosted by me, Mr. Ballin. A quick reminder, the content in this episode is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This episode was written by Aaron Land.

Our editor is Heather Dundas. Sound design is by Ryan Patesta. Thank you. For Ballin Studios, our producer is Alyssa Tomineng. Our head of production is Zach Levitt. Executive producers are myself, Mr. Ballin, and Nick Witters. For Wondery, senior managing producer is Ryan Lohr. Our head of sound is Marcelino Villapondo. Our producer is Julie Magruder. Senior producers are Laura Donna Palavoda and Dave Schilling. Our executive producers are Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Louis for Wondry.

Wondry. We'll be right back. This is Jack, and we've covered over a thousand episodes of pop business news stories on our daily podcast. We've identified the most viral products of all time, and their wild origin stories that you had no idea about. From the Levi's 501 jeans to Legos. Come for the products you're obsessed with. Stay for the business insights that are going to blow up your group chat. Jack, Nintendo, Super Mario Brothers, best-selling video game of all time. How'd they do it? Nintendo never fires anyone

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