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...

These are so awesome. Love em!

I worked at Wilford Hall Medical Center (now WH Ambulatory Surgical Center) on Lackland AFB for two years before they moved us over here to SAMMC, and believe me, that place (it's about 60 years old) is full of creepy stories. I experienced a few weird things there myself but I think this story is a lot cooler. :)

I was recently back there on a temporary duty assignment and working the night shift (we have an aeromedevac facility there now). I got bored - we had no patients but were required to staff 2 RNs there regardless - and went for a walk to the vending machines downstairs.

I ran into a couple of the construction guys near the elevators and they were talking about the paranormal team that was doing some investigating on the 8th floor (told you this place has a reputation). I asked them if they'd ever seen anything weird and one guy, who said he'd been at WHMC for more than ten years, told me this story.

They are currently taking out a lot of the CAT5 cable/copper cable that's running through the building as its slated for demolition in 2015. So this guy was working in between the 5th and 6th floors pulling cable. The cable was being fed to him from the ceiling above him - he couldn't see the guy feeding him the cable. Our dude was taking the cable coming down from the ceiling and coiling it on a big reel. So above his head the cable suddenly goes taut. Our guy pulls on it and says, "Hey, Joe, what's the holdup?" to the guy up in the ceiling that's pulling the cable out to send down to him. The cable starts feeding down again, and a few minutes later it goes taut again. Again our guy pulls on it and says, "Come on, keep sending it." So the cable begins filtering down to him - and again it goes taut. So our guy gets a bit peeved and shouts, "What the hell's going on up there, Joe - keep sending it down!" For a moment nothing happens - and then suddenly the cable FLIES at top speed from the ceiling down to our guy, who can barely keep up on his end. Finally it stops - it's at the end. He shouts up - "Joe, what in the world was that all about? What's going on up there?"

There's a tap on his shoulder and he whirls around.

Behind him is Joe, THE GUY HE THOUGHT WAS UP IN THE CEILING, who says, "I don't know - what's up?"

Just finished reading this fascinating thread, thanks for all your experiences. I'm interested in the ones where people who have passed "do things" after they are dead :p like the one where the gentleman scratched his nose after already being confirmed!

Please share! :)

I worked at Wilford Hall Medical Center (now WH Ambulatory Surgical Center) on Lackland AFB for two years before they moved us over here to SAMMC, and believe me, that place (it's about 60 years old) is full of creepy stories. I experienced a few weird things there myself but I think this story is a lot cooler. :)

I was recently back there on a temporary duty assignment and working the night shift (we have an aeromedevac facility there now). I got bored - we had no patients but were required to staff 2 RNs there regardless - and went for a walk to the vending machines downstairs.

I ran into a couple of the construction guys near the elevators and they were talking about the paranormal team that was doing some investigating on the 8th floor (told you this place has a reputation). I asked them if they'd ever seen anything weird and one guy, who said he'd been at WHMC for more than ten years, told me this story.

They are currently taking out a lot of the CAT5 cable/copper cable that's running through the building as its slated for demolition in 2015. So this guy was working in between the 5th and 6th floors pulling cable. The cable was being fed to him from the ceiling above him - he couldn't see the guy feeding him the cable. Our dude was taking the cable coming down from the ceiling and coiling it on a big reel. So above his head the cable suddenly goes taut. Our guy pulls on it and says, "Hey, Joe, what's the holdup?" to the guy up in the ceiling that's pulling the cable out to send down to him. The cable starts feeding down again, and a few minutes later it goes taut again. Again our guy pulls on it and says, "Come on, keep sending it." So the cable begins filtering down to him - and again it goes taut. So our guy gets a bit peeved and shouts, "What the hell's going on up there, Joe - keep sending it down!" For a moment nothing happens - and then suddenly the cable FLIES at top speed from the ceiling down to our guy, who can barely keep up on his end. Finally it stops - it's at the end. He shouts up - "Joe, what in the world was that all about? What's going on up there?"

There's a tap on his shoulder and he whirls around.

Behind him is Joe, THE GUY HE THOUGHT WAS UP IN THE CEILING, who says, "I don't know - what's up?"

I like this one. I was born there, I wonder if I got any "visitors" like some of the little ones in this thread.

" Nice ghost free office" HA! That's what I thought I was getting into. Instead I was stuck in a place where you ALWAYS felt a presence. Corporate recently shut down our clinic,but, while I was there the office staff and I were convinced something was there. The building has lots of windows and lots of glass. I was always catching a glimps of something out of the corner of my eye. And there were many days/evenings when I'd have to admit defeat and get the heck out of there. We would hear things and try to locate them, but, the sound would keep moving like we were chasing something. In fact, in the 2 years we were open we went through 4 office manageres. I decided not to mention anything to the last one. Withing a week, she had come to me to ask about "weird noises". It got to the point where I wouldn't stay in the office alone.[/quote']

You aren't by chance in San Antonio? I've heard our corporate office building is haunted.

This is kind of long winded, but anyhoo....I was on nightshift back in february this year, and I (being half way between believer and sceptic) decided to call on the ghosts. Just in my head, I wasn't sure how the other two would take to this! So I was standing in the corridor waiting for the computer that's attached to the wall to load up - takes forever. I was standing listening to the other two nurses having a conversation and looking down the corridor towards the door that leads to the stairwell, I was about twenty feet away from it. Now when you go through the door to the stair, there's a wall directly on the right that the door bangs off, and the stairs are on the left, and a wall straight ahead. The light was on (but quite dim as the light is on the wall down the first flight of stairs). I don't know why but I felt the need to keep looking through this window. I eventually looked away for a second, and when I brought my eyes back to it, after a couple of seconds a tall black shadow in the shape of a man went past the window, towards the wall, not the stairs! I kept my eye on it, and nobody went back down. I thought it was a lost patient as the stairs lead directly to two medical wards below. When I went to investigate, nobody was there! The same night, standing in the same place shortly after this, the other two nurses were having a conversation and talking over the top of one another. I heard my name, whispered, as clear as day. The doors to the bays were shut, so it couldn't have been a patient, but the possibility was always there, so I dismissed it as that (even though no patients buzzed anywhere around that time thus didn't want attention). It wasn't until I was on night shift the two night s ago with a senior staff nurse who's been on the ward for around twenty years, who told me that one night she had heard her name whispered too. And to top it off, when I went to borrow something from the medical ward down the stairs, the SN from that ward asked if I had come down the stairs. I said yes, and asked why, I thought maybe we weren't supposed to use it at night or something. This wasn't the case. He told me it was haunted. Now I'm creeped out! I'll be taking the long way round to the medical floor from now on.

This isn't really a ghost story, but it definitely gave me chills.

I was working in a critical care unit and there was a minister that was a pt. I can't really remember what was wrong with him but I do remember him saying that we better get his family because he would be "going home soon". In the course of the next hour, he was made a DNR.

I promise you, after that man died, he had a GLOW coming from his face and a smile that was so sweet.....I have never seen anything like it. Nurses from all over the unit came to see this man's face and everyone that saw it, cried. To this day, I get tears in my eyes thinking of it. I can not think of any other word to describe it but "heavenly".

That is something I would have loved to experience especially if it was something that not everyone was capable of visually seeing...I kind of wonder if there is a meaning behind not being able to see this glow?!? Hmmm, very interesting!!!

Seems that there are a lot of ghost stories in LTC facilities, and no surprise, with all the deaths. I am now working at a place that was built in the 60's, and one of the new 11-7 nurses told me that one night some of the nurses who had been there a while were trading creepy stories about the place....of course, I started asking around, and I got the usual stuff - call lights going on in rooms that patients had recently died in, the occasional late night sighting of a figure that on further inspection had disappeared - things like that.

By far the best story is the one I will tell here.

The building is one story, somewhat modern in the 70's style. Each unit has 4 halls radiating out from the nurses station, with 2 of the halls ending in glass exit doors. My unit is at the back of the building, facing the woods. Patients rooms have one outside wall of large windows. About 3 years ago, a new resident with mostly physical issues, only slight dementia, was admitted. She was in the last room at the end of one of the exit halls. After she had been there about a week, she started complaining about a man outside, looking in her windows. At first the nurses blew it off, thinking she was just confused, being in a new place, etc - I mean, some of the things the patients say are pretty wild, we are used to hearing all kinds of crazy things. But, with this lady, the complaints of this man became regular, and did not differ - always a man, standing right outside her window, looking in at her. They thought maybe we had a peeping Tom, and one of the male nurses started going outside to look every time she said the man was there. Being a heavily wooded area, there were a lot of places someone could hide - and he never found anyone out there. When one of the nurses questioned the resident more closely, she just said the same thing - a man, standing outside in the dark, right up close to her window, looking in at her. What really creeped me out is that she said she could see his eyes shining. Eventually she was transferred somewhere else, and no one else has complained about this man...but I am always on the lookout for him when I have to go in that room at night.....

Specializes in Gerontology.

geslina! That one gave me chills!

Love this thread! I have a few stories, none nursing related so far, but I can't resist sharing. I'll post them intermittently. This one isn't mine, but its my favorite.

My best friend's family is very devout Catholic. Her mother "Pat" is a very level-headed woman, has no flair for the dramatic, is just an all around straight shooter so I don't think she would make this up. In the summer of 1980 she had given birth to her fourth son. Although she had three other children, this baby was the first child of her second husband's. Her new husband was very excited to take on the father role of his newly blended family, but the birth of his own blood heir brought him some sadness. His mother, who he had been extremely close to, had recently passed away after a long battle with the after effects of a stroke, before she had a chance to meet her daughter-in-law or new grandchildren. At the time, it was something that he really struggled with and Pat said her new husband's sadness was often palpable.

One night, long after everyone else in the home had gone to bed, Pat heard the baby making a fuss and got up to nurse him in his room. After she was done feeding him and he had drifted off to sleep, Pat laid him in the crib and sat back down in the rocker instead of going back to bed. Pat was just sitting there rocking and looking at the crib when all of a sudden the entire right side of her body went numb and then became paralyzed. She sat in the chair for several minutes, unable to call out, trying to will the right side of body to move to no avail, panicked. Then, for reasons unknownst to her, Pat felt this overwhelming sense of calm and then a strong urge to grab the baby. So she struggled out of the rocker and dragged herself across the floor to the crib using only her left side. Pat was eventually able to grab the baby out of the crib and lay with him on the floor, holding him in her arms, rocking him while he slept. This went on for the next couple of hours. Pat says during this time she was completely lucid and calm but had no control over her voice or body, so she just stayed in her own head at peace and prayed. Eventually Pat drifted off to sleep and woke up the next morning able to move and speak again, on the floor with the baby.

Once she gathered herself, Pat woke her husband to tell him what had just happened and he was moved to tears. He explained to Pat that it must have been his mother visiting them, wanting to spend time with his first biological son, her grandchild. Prior to this, Pat had heard many stories about the woman who would have been her mother-in-law and knew she had passed because of a stroke, but she hadn't known until that morning that her mother-in-law had been paralyzed on her right side while she was alive. To this day, Pat just glows when she shares this story. She feels blessed that she got to "meet" her mother-in-law and could be the vessel that allowed her mother-in-law to "meet" her first grandchild as well.

Several years ago, shortly after my grandpa died, I was sleeping and it was about 3 a.m. I woke up to balloons popping (just had a birthday party for my son) and musical toys playing in the living room. I woke up and said "hi grampa. I'm trying to sleep". The noises stopped right away. I wasn't scared at all and went back to sleep.

Specializes in Med-Surg.

Was caring for a patient who was entering into the dying process. He kept staring across the room, so I asked what he was looking at. He said, "Look at all of them.. It's so beautiful." He died within a couple of hours. Made me smile. :)

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