Whats your best nursing ghost story?

I worked in a local nursing home several years ago,and there were two confused ladies in a semi-private room. The lady by the window, we'll call her Mrs.L, had an old fashioned looking black and white photo of an old woman with a shawl on. She would turn on her side all the time and chatter to it. I asked her who it was, she said it was her mother. One day I went into the room to medicate the roommate and the partition curtain was drawn between them. There was just enough of a gap in the curtain to see that Mrs.L had a visitor with a red shawl on . She was talking like she always does. I came back down to the nurses sation and asked one of my coworkers who the visitor was. She said she hadn't seen anyone go in there. So I went back into the room to meet the visitor and no one was there. I asked Mrs. L who she was visiting with and she said, "my mother came in. " I said it could not have been her. I then looked at the picture again at the woman in the picture and asked her what she wears, Mrs. L says " her red shawl today." Scared the hell out of me!! I got out of there. The other nurse said she had seen "mom" before too.

My wife has worked in hospice for 19 years. She told me of a patient who passed in their inpatient unit. No pulse, no breathing, mottled, cold, dead. She asked another nurse to help her prepare him for his family. They went into the room and started cleaning off the bedside table and straightening up. Then both froze as the patient's right arm slowly bent at the elbow, raised his hand to his face and scratched the side of his nose with his index finger. Then it relaxed on his face. They both got out of there and it took awhile for my wife to convince her coworker to go back in with her to finish prepping him. He didn't move again and they worked as quickly as they could.

I have a few of them. Some types we all experience like how healthy old people can tell you the day and almost the time they will die. Had a few of those. But the one that hit home the most for me requires a bit of background.

I was not happy with a guy I had working (LTC) on my midnight shift and I was too afraid to have him work another night. So, I went down to the facility and fired him, then I took his shift. Turns out, I was right to do that, in retaliation for his being fired he set one of our buildings on fire. A building my old people were sleeping in!

You have to experience it to understand but when you are in a burning building and you are pretty sure you aren't getting out and you about to prove to the non physical people that you were right about religion all along (LOL) you quickly form a bond with all the others that aren't going to get out of the building alive either.

We did manage to get out and everyone was safe except one person who did die a few days later.

After that day I was terrified of working the midnight shift. Some of our staff lived on the property such as the groundskeeper. I was forever waking the poor guy up throughout the night swearing I could smell smoke, or I heard crinkling of something burning. I would sit at the nurses station and just shake and cry. (A little PTSD? )

G was a lady that has a history of a stroke. She didn't have poor short term memory, she had NO short term memory. After 7 years she still couldn't remember who I was or what she was doing in this building.

From the time of her stroke to the time she died G ALWAYS had her days and nights mixed up. She was quite content to walk the halls and quietly hum, sit with me at the nurses station, whatever she wanted. She actually had the entire A building to herself. (We had buildings A-E)

I would bribe G with candy to sit at the nurses station with me while I worked. I never had to say anything, I'd just pull the candy dish out and G would happily munch candy, we'd talk, and I'd do my work. I just needed a human to sit with me. This was our little secret. Actually, it was my little secret! LOL G wouldn't remember by the time she stood up that she even ate any candy.

Shortly after the fire it happens to be that G died and I was all alone again on the few nights I did pull an 11/7.

One night after G's death I was sitting there trembling in fear, tears streaming down my face, ready to have the best ever panic attack SWEARING I could see, hear, and smell fire/smoke again and out walks K. K was a cool old lady, she really was. She was from Germany and she was one of the people trapped in the burning building with us.

I composed myself and asked what I could do for her. She sat down and said she thought it would be nice to chat. LOVING the company and thinking she was probably unable to sleep I said sure, what would you like to chat about? She thought for a moment and finally said that G had just come to wake her up. I realized she had been dreaming. I reminded her that G passed away recently. K said she was aware of that but G woke K and explained that when I work nights I become afraid and needed someone to sit with me so I could do my work. G told K I was having a rough night and it might make me feel better if K came out and spent a little time with me.

I just sat there not knowing what to say, I mean... that was MY secret. I never told anyone about G, the candy, or our talks at night. K stood up, walked behind the nurses station, sat down and pulled out the hidden dish of candy. Then she proceeded to tell me what life was like for her when she was my age living in Germany.

K died about two years later but to this day I dearly love that woman. What a gem. Same with G.

I don't expect anyone to believe it but it's true.

I work for a pediatric home health agency and unfortunately have known many children who have died. One boy stands out in particular. He was 6 years old and had severe CP, with daily seizures. He also had an ASD, and some respiratory issues, so that whenever he got a cold, he got really sick and needed lots of suctioning and oxygen. Last winter, he had an awful cold, and was sicker than usual, wanting to sleep all the time for two days, so we took him to the pediatician. After consulting with a neurologist, the pediatrician said that the little boys "respiratory center" in his brain was shutting down, and we should call hospice.
Hospice came the same afternoon and agreed that he was dying, and proabably only had a few days to live. He only lived about 3 more days, and became less and less concious over those 3 days. He would no longer make eye contact with his mom or me, but would look just above our heads and smile this beautiful joyful smile. He died peacefully in his moms arms.
Antother interesting thing with him is the dream that his grandfather had, the day BEFORE the pediatrician told us to call hospice. At that time, we knew that this child was sick, but he had been very sick many times before, so we certainly weren't expecting him to die. The night before we saw the pediatrician, the grandfather (who was VERY close to the little boy) had an dream that was unlike any he had ever had. In reality, this little boy had never walked, talked, or eaten by mouth, but he was a loving little boy who smiled, laughed, and loved his Mom and Grandfather more than anyone. In the dream, the grandfather was putting his grandson in his wheelchair, and the little boy said " What are you doing grandpa? I don't need this anymore!" , and he went running off to play with some other children.

Having worked in Hospice for awhile, I know how common it is for people to talk to family members who have already passed on, prior to their own death.
I've been reading these many posts where the same thing occurs over and over.
I've never really been afraid of death. But I realized through these posts, that I don't have anyone to meet me on the other side. It has deeply saddened me. I have a daughter who God willing, will go after me. But other than that, I don't have anyone. My mother will go to hell, she is very evil, and I never knew my father. Maybe I'll have pets who will meet me, if they can care for humans. However pets do seem to prefer the company of men, sh**, guess I'm out of luck.

This story didn't involve a ghost but still scared the pants off of me. One night while working LTC I was leaving my station to go down to the break room for a drink. The front doors of the facility had two long windows on each side of the doors. As I passed by the front doors I saw someone looking in one of the windows. It looked like Beetlejuice! Black around the eyes, red lips with blood running down the sides and freaky hair that stood up on the sides. Have you ever seen the cartoons where the character gets scared and tries to take off running but just can't seem to get traction and take off. Well that was me. I was trying to take off running but wasnt going anywhere for what felt like minutes but was a few seconds. Finally I took off and ran to the next nurses station. I had anohter nurse go with me and we peeked around the corner. He was still there. She said it does look like Beetlejuice! We called the police and they were there almost immediately. Ends up it was a drunk man who had been in a bar fight. His eyes were blacked and mouth busted. He was looking for the emergency room next door to our facility but was too drunk to figure out which building was which.