What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

Nurses General Nursing Nursing Q/A

Nursing is a profession that often involves long lonely night shifts in eerie hospital wards. It's a perfect breeding ground for ghost stories. These stories often involve sightings of apparitions, strange noises, and unexplained events that are said to have taken place in hospitals, hospices, and other healthcare settings. Some of these stories are believed to be based on true events, while others are purely fictional. Regardless, they continue to captivate and intrigue both nurses and non-nurses alike - providing a spooky glimpse into the world of healthcare after dark.

I know you have seen and heard freaky things. Share your nursing ghost stories...

Brought tears to my eyes......

ditto

I love all these stories, and I'll share one although it's not related to nursing.

In 1988, my precious, dear grandmother become the victim in an auto vs. pedestrian accident. Not her fault at all, it was a 16 y.o. driver who hit both my grandparents, twice. They tried their best to save her, as she was LifeFlighted to the nearest trauma center. She just had too many internal injuries. My grandfather faired better, and survived.

Her best friend and neighbor, Kay, was in Boston on a business trip. My grandmother died at 9PM Pacific time, so it was midnight in Boston. Kay says that she was asleep, but awoke to the figure of my grandmother sitting on her bed. My grandmother communicated telepathically to Kay, "Take care of Ralph for me." (Ralph is my grandfather). Kay said, "I will." And my grandmother was gone.

Kay married my grandfather a few years later with the family's blessing. He eventually develops Parkinson's and deteriorates rather fast. In August of 1998, the end was near for him. My mother and aunt are with him. They start talking in the living room while hospice was there for a visit. They said to each other that it was 10 years ago today that my grandmother died. My grandfather had lost all sense of time and my aunt goes in and tells him, "It was 10 years ago today that Mom died." He then quietly passed away. It was as if he was waiting for the anniversary of my grandmother's death so he could go join her. It was OK for him to go.

Specializes in Labor and Delivery.
I love all these stories, and I'll share one although it's not related to nursing.

In 1988, my precious, dear grandmother become the victim in an auto vs. pedestrian accident. Not her fault at all, it was a 16 y.o. driver who hit both my grandparents, twice. They tried their best to save her, as she was LifeFlighted to the nearest trauma center. She just had too many internal injuries. My grandfather faired better, and survived.

Her best friend and neighbor, Kay, was in Boston on a business trip. My grandmother died at 9PM Pacific time, so it was midnight in Boston. Kay says that she was asleep, but awoke to the figure of my grandmother sitting on her bed. My grandmother communicated telepathically to Kay, "Take care of Ralph for me." (Ralph is my grandfather). Kay said, "I will." And my grandmother was gone.

Kay married my grandfather a few years later with the family's blessing. He eventually develops Parkinson's and deteriorates rather fast. In August of 1998, the end was near for him. My mother and aunt are with him. They start talking in the living room while hospice was there for a visit. They said to each other that it was 10 years ago today that my grandmother died. My grandfather had lost all sense of time and my aunt goes in and tells him, "It was 10 years ago today that Mom died." He then quietly passed away. It was as if he was waiting for the anniversary of my grandmother's death so he could go join her. It was OK for him to go.

How in the world did he hit them twice?

The best I have heard is from a nurse who said that one night she was floated to oncology at the hospital she used to work at. She was given a patient who was passing away and had been unconscious for several days. At one point during the night the nurse went into the room and the patient was at the top of the bed and looked at her and said, "don't let them take me!", the nurse was freaked out and asked her who was going to take her and she said that black thing up there and pointed up in the air. This patient died within minutes.

Come on now share your stories, I know you have seen and heard freaky things.

I was working in Surgical Intensive Care one evening. Mr. B was well enough that he was to be transferred out of ICU the next day. The three of us nurses were busy with outher patients, and in ICU you can see in all the rooms at once. Mr. B was sitting up on the side of his bed watching us. We checked on him by visually seeing him well enough to sit on the side of the bed. On one of my glances, I noticed that he had fallen to the floor, monitors were beeping EKG etc.....we all went running into his room and saw that he was not breathing and did not have a pulse, we started CPR and called a code.......we coded him for about 45 minutes before the physician called the code - Mr. B was gone. After things had calmed down the three of us nurses were rehashing t he event - which is common. Janet, one of the nurses asked me: "Who was that sitting on the bed beside Mr. B before he fell to the floor?" I said, "No one had been in his room all evening......." But someone or some spirit had visited him right before his dying - I'll never forget!

My grandparents had made an agreement that whoever "went first" would send a sign (if possible) to let the remaining person know that they were okay and watching over them. If the person's spirit could come back, the sign would be that a specific knick-knack shelf would be knocked off the wall. My grandfather fell asleep at the wheel of his truck in 1978, went off the road, and hit a concrete embankment. He was still alive when they brought him to the ER, but died shortly thereafter. When my grandmother returned home from the hospital (she was alone - it happened so fast none of the family was there yet), that exact knick-knack shelf was laying the in middle of the living room floor. That sign gave my grandmother considerable comfort because she knew without a doubt that it was grandpa telling her he was okay.

For those of you who have been reading through this whole thread - my grandmother that I'm talking about in this post is the same one that I talked about in a previous post - she's the one my mother is convinced came to the family after her death as a huge snow white dog.

This isn't a ghost story exactly, but it kind of bugs me and is undoubtedly creepy.

My grandmother passed away last January. It was a very emotional situation, with a lot of hard feelings on both sides. My last words with her were a terrible argument, and d/t a bunch of insane family strife, my mother and I didn't find out about her death until she'd been dead about a week. We still don't know what my half uncle did with her ashes. Whew..that's a very long story..suffice it to say that it was all ugly enough that the way I found out about her death was that a fellow classmate (I'm a second year adsn as of this fall) works at the nsg home she was in, and on the first day back to school after xmas break, she told me she was "sorry for my loss". I asked her what she meant, and finally worked out that my grandmother had passed. There I was, first day back to class, and had to bail to go and tell my mother that her mom had passed away.

Anyway, this past March I got my CNA, and as that particular facility pays best, I ended up there. My grandmother's room was 110, and so help me, even though I walk right past it on my way to break, I always forget to look inside that room, no matter how determined I am on my way. Each time I purposely head that direction, something happens to keep me from getting there, even so far as a resident falling out of his wheelchair right in front of me, and by the time I've resolved whatever problem I encountered, I've forgotten what I'd intended to do. In the five months I've worked in the building, I have never once looked inside room 110. It's probably some subconscious hangup of my own, but whatever it is, it's like a reverse magnet.

Deana

Of course your story raises the age old question of whether or not free will really exists or is just an illusion. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in between a la Johnny Smith in the Dead Zone where specific futures exist until they are altered by the application of free will. What if "S" had told the guy to be extra careful? Would it have made a difference or would death have come to collect its due in some other fashion?

The posting above about Amelie and her prediction prompts me to talk about someone else with an uncanny gift. My grandfather's cousin had a reputation for being something of a clairvoyant. Before tarot cards and psychics became as commonplace as they are in today's culture, ladies like S (my grandad's cousin) sometimes used regular old playing cards as tools for asking questions about the future. S knew ahead of time if someone was going to die - for example: my grandad and his friends went out on some hunting trip (this was when they were all teenagers) and as they were leaving, S apparently turned to my great grandmother and told her who wouldn't be coming back. The poor guy froze to death after getting lost in the woods out hunting.

There are several other stories about S that both my mother and her sister have shared with me. My favorite is how when my mom was 16 and her sister was 12, S told my mom that she would soon be on a stage, being recognized and applauded, and this would lead her away from home. S also told my mom's sister that she would have a hard life and be married twice, and that she would be alone for many years after her first brief marriage before finding happiness and being well-cared for late in life. Well, three years after this, my mother won a beauty pageant and off she went to the national competition. My aunt, meanwhile, married at 21, divorced him at 29, raised her kids by herself on a secretary's pay, and finally remarried at 51.

There are other examples I could list, but this post is too long already. Suffice it to say, I believe there are people out there, like Amelie, with a gift.

Yes, I have indeed wondered about the "free will" aspect of it all. I have begun to think some things are preordained, otherwise how to explain how S was essentially forecasting forty years into the future, in the case of my mom's sister ?

S was always most reluctant to confront people with the "bad things" she saw. It was infrequent she would say something, and I think (based on conversations with my mom, aunt and other relatives) that's because she probably had little idea what she could do to forestall events, combined with the usual desire to avoid being the bearer of bad news. Personally, if I "saw" future bad events, I might be too freaked out to function, wondering what I myself could do in the face of such things. There's also the minor issue of people thinking you're crazy!

Also, there is this. S lived into my late teens, so my mother had more than just that one "reading" from her. I must have been about 16 or so and Mom went to visit S, who told her that there was going to be "an upheaval" at my mom's office when she returned, and that it had to do with a blonde man. Not long after this visit, one of the partners (a blonde man) in Mom's office quit. I've asked my mother why, oh why, did she never ask S about my future or my sister's, given that Mom was well aware of S's abilities. Mom has shuddered and replied that she didn't think she wanted to know such things.

It's also possible (and I emphasize the word possible rather than probable or likely) that merely by asking one's future that the future is altered in a negative manner. That is to say by seeking such information one may put one's self under greater influences from "negative" forces. Your mother may have considered this possibility if only at a subconcious, intuitive level. Analogies would include asking questions from a Quija board et (I am also reminded of the story of I believe it was Saul in the Old Testament who sought counsel from a dead ancestor only to be told accurately that he would meet his doom). I have read many accounts of people who "dabbled" in various ways with the "occult" and experienced incredible strings of bad luck (of course I have read perhaps an equal number of accounts where just the opposite occured). 

Angie_Baby said:
Yes, I have indeed wondered about the "free will" aspect of it all. I have begun to think some things are preordained, otherwise how to explain how S was essentially forecasting forty years into the future, in the case of my mom's sister ?

S was always most reluctant to confront people with the "bad things" she saw. It was infrequent she would say something, and I think (based on conversations with my mom, aunt and other relatives) that's because she probably had little idea what she could do to forestall events, combined with the usual desire to avoid being the bearer of bad news. Personally, if I "saw" future bad events, I might be too freaked out to function, wondering what I myself could do in the face of such things. There's also the minor issue of people thinking you're crazy!

Also, there is this. S lived into my late teens, so my mother had more than just that one "reading" from her. I must have been about 16 or so and Mom went to visit S, who told her that there was going to be "an upheaval" at my mom's office when she returned, and that it had to do with a blonde man. Not long after this visit, one of the partners (a blonde man) in Mom's office quit. I've asked my mother why, oh why, did she never ask S about my future or my sister's, given that Mom was well aware of S's abilities. Mom has shuddered and replied that she didn't think she wanted to know such things.

Yes, the 16 y.o. was charged with 1 count of vehicular manslaughter and did not serve jail time.

No jail, huh? That's a darn shame. :angryfire

I'm sorry for your loss.

I have posted this on these threads before (infact I copied and pasted it), but here it is.

Okay, I know this one sounds strange, but hear me out.

We just moved into a brand new hospital, and the locker room (to the OR) always sounds like there is someone in there changing (Lockers closing, opening, mumbling voices ect.) but there never is (I work weekends and nights when I am the only one around). I go in there completely expecting to see someone in one of the bays, but no one is there. I have attributed this to a new building still settling in.

One day around 6PM I am at my locker and I hear this strange whooshing noise. I attribute it to the clock behind me, when I realize it is coming from infront of me. I start listening closely and it coming from the locker directly below mine. I put my ear to it and it sounds exactly like someones mouth is behind the vent breathing. I automatically reach to open the locker and as soon as I touch it, the noise stops. All of the lockers are locked (each one has an individual key), but now one owns any of the bottom lockers. A few seconds later it starts up again, I said "Hello?" (fully expecting a response)and immediately it stops again.

I told a few close friends I work with about it, to see if they had heard anything. They all say they have heard the lockers open, voices, ect., but never the breathing.

The next weekend two of my coworkers and I all go into the locker room (again around 6pm). Their lockers are one bay down from mine, and we are all talking loudly, but as soon as I get to my locker, I hear it again. I told them to shut up and get over here now! One of them put their ear by the locker, and stood up soo quickly, we bashed heads. Put their ear down again to listen and slammed their fist on the locker it scared them so bad. The other person wouldn't listen and ran out of the locker room.

The following weekend the charge nurse (that works graveyards) was in there next to that locker doing her charges at around 3am. She told me she heard breathing coming from below my locker and ran out of there. She said "I could just see a demon back there watching me."

I retrieved the key from the unit secratary and opened the locker, half way expecting something (or someone) to be in there. There was nothing, and no air vent in there to cause the sound.

I am not one to scare easily, but there is just no other expanation I can come up with. Something I forgot to mention, whenever the "breathing" stoped (from touching the locker ect.), when it started back up again, it was a gasping (like someone who held there breath trying to catch their breath again) :uhoh21:

It sounds like the locker room/locker needs exorcising or prayers....It sure doesn't sound like a run-of-the-mill ghost.

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