An Edmonton hospital may be able to lay claim to a truly dubious title: the worst time capsule opening ever.

The Misericordia Community Hospital on Monday opened a time capsule that had been buried for just 25 years, and had nothing of any real interest buried inside.

.@GlobalEdmonton The Misericordia Hospital prepare to open a time capsule buried 25 years before. pic.twitter.com/Jc8RaIiuRu — Charles R Taylor (@taylormadegirls) June 1, 2015

In fact, the time capsule was so inconsequential that for years, the hospital forgot all about it. According to the Edmonton Journal, the only reason anybody found it all was because in 2013, when the hospital buried a different time capsule, someone remembered they’d already done this before. Except nobody remembered where it had been hidden.

A granite bird bath supposedly marked the spot, but the bird bath had been moved several times because of construction, with no records to determine where the time capsule might be.

A report in the Edmonton Sun said staff were dumbfounded until someone told the staff to look inside the bird bath itself. They smashed it open and found a steel box that had been welded shut.



Inside the box, they found a list of what was in the box, photos from a retirement party in 1989, menus and hospital brochures, a Canadian dollar bill, and a recipe for apple pie. The capsule also included a uniform from the hospital’s School of Nursing, which closed in 1997, a cloth diaper and glass thermometer, some cassettes, and a three-piece hip joint replacement, according to the Edmonton Sun.





Staff at the Misericordia hospital look over items pulled from a time capsule buried 25 years ago pic.twitter.com/hUkuATt3dK — Claire Theobald (@ClaireTheobald) June 1, 2015



Janet Schimpf, senior operating officer at the hospital, told the Sun that from now on, they’ll keep a record of where to find their time capsules.

