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...

Thank you all for sharing your stories.

I just pray none of them, hang out forever....and go into the light.

It's taken me a really long time to post this, I wouldn't believe it myself if it hadn't happened to me, and if my best friend wasn't there to witness it. We've been best friends since middle school, went to nursing school together and now work at the same hospital in Virginia. I'm an ER nurse and she's a floater, on December 11, 2007 she was working in the ER with me to help cover due to holiday vacations.

On the week of Halloween my boyfriend and I decided to take the plunge and move in together, he's a Fire Fighter / EMT. We met in the ER when he was bringing in a patient.

It as a very quiet night in the ER, I was running vitals on a new patient who came in complaining of chest pains when my friend walked in to tell me I had a phone call. She gave me a quick wink when she told me "I'll take over", I already knew who was on the phone. When I picked up the reciever at the nurses station it was the love of my life, Garrett. He started out with his normal, boisterous "Hey Baby!" It's funny how two words can make you smile, then he told me "I'm getting ready to leave" I just thought he was heading to the fire house as I knew he was working that night. Then he said, "I wanted to hear you voice one more time before I left...... I love you...." I laughed and told him I loved him and I would see him soon, then in a really quiet voice he said "yeah, you will." I told him I loved him one more time and we hung up, I went back to my patient and relayed the conversation to my best friend.

Within a few minutes it seemed as if our hospital was surrounded by lights and sirens. Three police cars and two fire trucks flanking one ambulance. Everyone available suited up and gloved up. I went back to my chest pains patient who I think was looking more for a warm bed then meds to help with the pain. I saw the gurney rush in, EMT's were performing CPR, there was total chaos.

After a few minutes when I had my patient settled in and a bed ready for him upstairs I walked out of his room and saw a few of the EMT's Garrett worked with standing with their backs to me looking into the trauma room with the new patient. I called Briggs name walking towards them and when he turned around he had a grave expression on his face. The first thing he said to me was, "I didn't know you were working tonight" I told him yes, Garrett and I were both working tonight. Then I asked, what's wrong? All of them were staring at me, no one moved, so I asked again - louder "What's Wrong?!" I looked over Briggs shoulder into the trauma room and felt my world collapse around me. Garrett was lying on the gurney, intebated, defibrillators against his chest, there was blood everywhere. I screamed and tried to bolt into the room, to touch him, to hold him, to do anything I could to help. Briggs caught me around the waist and held on so tight I realized within the next few days I had bruises on my sides. I just remember crumpling to the floor watching - helpless, sobbing and screaming his name. The doctors pronounced him at 8:42pm. His Nissan Titan had been t-boned (drivers side) by a tractor trailer going roughly 50 mph. There was no hope....

The day before the funeral several of us were sitting at our house....my house....no one was really talking we were just....sitting there. My best friend broke the silence and said, "Well, you were able to talk to him one last time, able to say I love you before he died." I smiled, a fresh batch of tears started, I just shook my head and whispered, "the accident must have happened a few minutes after he called." I looked across the living room and Briggs had an odd expression on his face, I asked what was wrong - he asked me "What time did you talk to Garrett", I thought about it for a few minutes and then my expression matched his, then I answered him "About 20 minutes before you brought him in...." Briggs stared at me. My best friend asked, "Why do you ask?" Still staring at me Briggs answered "Because that's not possible, we recieved the call at the station at 7:36, we were on the scene by 7:41 and Garrett wasn't concious, by the time we pulled him out of the truck a little after 8:00 he didn't have a pulse, we started CPR immediately. Stacy, there's no way you could have talked to Garrett before we brought him in.... he was already dead."

No one in the room spoke, we all knew it had happened, my best friend answered the phone herself, Garrett said hello to her first and asked to speak to me. Other nurses and doctors around the nursing station overhead our conversation. He called to say he loved me one more time before he left.........

Months of therapy, weeks of vacation before stepping foot back into the ER. Some wounds never fully heal, and I don't really consider this a ghost story because I don't consider the man I loved most in this world a ghost - everyday I cherish the fact that I was allowed to talk to him one more time..... And I know he's still with me.... my firefighter....

I am am not a nurse yet but planning on going through the rn program once I get my life all the way back together, this will be a very long post. My cousin and I were raised like sisters, we shall call her "c" from here on out. My cousin C and I grew up so close she was my sister, the person I looked up to when young and my best friend. We were 3 years apart. She being a bit older. C struggled for about 10 years with an active methamphetamine addiction. During this period she had three children. Her first was raised by her mother, her second was an exact replica and never left her side. When she got pregnant with her third son, I was also pregnant with my first and only. During this time she was in active addiction and would not let it be known she was pregnant. Most of our family had given up on her due to her mistakes. I never did. I love her with all my heart and even through her active addiction she never did me wrong(never stole, lied or used me) as her addiction had made her do to others. During this time our roles had switched it was now her looking up to me..

We spent many a night when she would show up at 3-4am on the drug and completely a mess. The child's father was a very bad man whom she never told she was pregnant. Due to her numerous times failing to recover from her disease she decided the best thing for her to do would be give her child up for adoption. I was adamantly against this and told her no PLEASE don't do this. Give this child to me if you can't handle it..

Fast forward her due date was 2 weeks and 4 days after mine however her baby was born on my baby's due date and I was 2 weeks late. I spent every day after the baby was born trying to convince her to keep this baby, I could foster him until she could handle him. She finally made the decision to keep him. I went home that night and spilt much of my babies things so that the new baby would have something. I picked her babies name :-)

Unfortunately baby "j" was born addicted to methamphetamine, she lost her children due to this. This is why the baby was born early. Her parents fought for custody and won foster custody as long as "c" could follow all the court rules she could have her babies back within 1 year.

This finally kicked in and gave her the incentive she needed to quit with the drugs. She followed the court rules. Married her other children's father which was also the love of her life...

2 months after her marriage she was taking a drug called lamitctol due to the drugs causing chemical imbalances and bi-Polar disorder. This drug cause something called sjs(Stevens Johnson syndrome) for months she was in the hospital basically burning from the inside out. I guess from everything I've read this is very rare so most drs don't know how to treat it.

"C" was scared she'd never been in a hospital, had surgery or anything similar. They told us her mortality rate was 80%. We took shirts staying with her. Her mother, sister and my mother covered days. After I put my newborn to sleep I spent EVERY night w/her. She knew she wouldn't make it but I kept praying and begging her to have hope.

The hospital she was in was terrible(or maybe they didn't know how to treat this) I would come in every night and she would push her pain pump and I would move her to her shower chair then have house keeping come in and change sheets and clean up HUGE piles of shed skin. I would shower her, trying to get the dead skin off without hurting her as much as I could(okayed by her dr) then I would cream her, wrap her in that silver(antibacterial wrap) the she would push her pain button and we'd move her to her bed.

I'd then have housekeeping come in and clean the bathroom. I brought Clorox sanitizing wipes with me, and Lysol and everything I could to kill germs as they told me at this point with her shedding over 80% of her skin she was at MAJOR risk for infection. They were biopsing her daily to confirm the ska and it kept coming back inconclusive.

Everything I read and heard said she NEEDED to be in a burn unit so were calling and the head of the burn unit(only one in our area) finally came in and asked her why she wanted to be in a burn unit. She said I have sjs and I'm at major risk for infection. This pos says to her if you had sjs you'd be dead right now. It took my family members from not ripping this mans eyes out...

2 days later biopsy comes back saying she has sjs. The burn unit dr comes back and personally apologizes(I still wanted to beat him to a pulp) and offers her a bed. We had been watching her meds sooooo close because once you have sjs/tens as she did there is a massive list of meds you can't take the main one being sulphate based antibiotics. The day of transfer with all of the hustle and bustle of moving to the burn unit(mind you by this point she's improving a bit. The dr prescribed a sulphate based antibiotic.

This basically killed her... When she got to the burn unit 3 cc nurses spent 8 hours scraping the dead skin off. She was there for 2 weeks before passing of which we spent every day there... 3 days prior to her death she told me Crystal I'm going to die. I tried reassuring her but she just knew.. I was scared to death to lose her. I had been with her everyday since she'd been hospitalized. When she was moved to the burn unit they wouldn't let us stay the night and could only visit 20 min every hour 2 people max. She was sooooo scared. I prayed with her and for her. I begged her nurse to spend any extra second with her. That nurse went out of her way to do this and I feel it really helped my loved one.

I have really strong intuition I knew she was at the end. I couldn't handle it. For two days after she told me she was going to die I COULDNT bring myself to be there. I'd been there every day before that but I was a WRECK(I feel so selfish for this) the first day I didn't come they sedated her and put her on a respirator. The 2nd day her veins had so many holes in them from the steroids she was leaking everything from the Ivs directly into her body and she was so swollen the decided the following day thru would open her up and leave her like that with plastic covering her to give her room so she didn't "burst" I suppose.

The two days I didn't visit I couldn't sleep but I would pass out for 1 to 2 hours here and there. By this time she was septic with acenibator? When I would fall asleep for those short periods she was telling me to please come to her she was waiting for me. In my dreams I would get tgere and she would flatline.

The day of the surgery(after I missed 2 days there) I showed up. I walked into her room and held her hand(it was blue and cold) I said you can't do this I know it's horrible but you are too young PLEASE fight this.. She squeezed my hand which I don't understand as they said she was completely sedated, then she flatlined.. Just like my dream. I was screaming PLEASE DONT LEAVE ME I LOVE YOU! You come back now!!! Her monitor started beeping correctly again..

They couldn't even make it to the or without her flatlining as she did it on the was out the door. They did the surgery in her room. They then told us they've done everything they could do. Her mother then signed a dnr as they said they weren't receiving brain activity and if she made it she would loose her legs below the knees and her hands.

11pm that night I lost one of the most important people in the world.as I was telling her to go while holding her cold blue hand. When she passed I felt this warmth behind me(the room was freezing) and felt her arms around me. When the nurse cracked the window the feeling was gone. I've never cried so hard or felt such loss...

Due to the loss of skin she could never keep her body temp warm enough so I had brought her a comforter I could not use and my good friend made her a quadruple felt tie blanket with her name embroidered.. I slept with those blankets for months.

For the first 3 weeks at 4am every morning I went running down my steps after I heard my doorbell ring(this is the time she visited during her addiction problem. When I opened the door I could feel her for a bit and when that feeling dissipated I broke down over and over again....

This was in May of 2009, on her birthday of March this year I was a mental wreck. I get that time around her bday as out bdays are 6 days apart and we celebrated together every year. I had an experience this year I can't really explain. I was upset because of our bday a and because my fiancé and I of 6 years were bickering and we've never been like this we were having problems...

In my "dream", don't really believe it was a dreAm her and I were sitting together. We were nowhere(that's the only way I can explain it) there was just white and it was as if we were sitting on nothing legs crossed facing each other. I told her I missed her terribly, she said I miss being able to speak to you but I see you everyday. She told me things that have been going on in my life. Her children's life. She expressed anger over the fact that her husbands gf whom he started dating 5 months after her death didn't treat her daughter as well as she should because her daughter looks EXACTLY AND ACTS EXACTLY LIKE "C". She told me my fiancé and I were having problems because I have a guard up(my fiancé head left me for 2 months before a few years ago) she told me in order to make this work I've got to let go of that fear. I asked her where she was, she said I'm ALWAYS close to all of you. I'll never stop watching over you and I want you to get back into your mode and get back to school... She said I have to go now but I love you and "a" my son. She ui me she ALWAYS hears me when I talk to her but I HAVE to let go of my sadness because we will be together again someday.. The walked off to my left and faded away.... I've had ghostly encounters but NEVER anything so touching.

I shall get my RNA license due to the nurse that made her comfortable in the end while we couldn't be there :-) I want to go for critical care. I Need to make a difference in the end when people need it the very most

p.s. I googled nurses ghost stories and have been reading them for about a week! Keep the coming ladies n gents :-) Pleaseeeeeeee I'm addicted :-)

I've posted in this thread before but I just remembered another story

This is way back when I was a student nurse in London - this was in the days of hospital based training and I was working at the Royal London Hospital in the east end of London. A very old hospital - its changed a lot since.

Anyway - I used to live in one of the nurses homes like a lot of us did. We all said they were haunted - they had been there forever!

One year I had gone to stay with a friend for a few days after Christmas. When I got back I put my bag on my bed and knocked on the door opposite where my friend lived and she came to my room for coffee while I unpacked.

After I had emptied my bag I noticed I didn't have my de-odorant - not really a big deal but I totally remembered packing it (because I'd had to move it in my bag to make it fit properly) and besides - it was so cold outside I didn't want to have to go out and buy another one! ******* and moaned to my friend about it then forgot all about it.

later that night while i was in bed I heard a noise in my room - like something moving on my dresser so I flicked my light on. There on my dresser - right at the front, was my de-odorant!

I was totally freaked out -but nothing else ever happened in that room

I have a pretty good one. I recently just started working my first "nursing career" job as a STNA while going through school to get my RN.

I work night shift in a skilled care facility and I absolutely love it. Most of the patients have some sort of dementia, Alzheimer's, sun-downers etc. but one of my patients is always very lucid and isn't known to say delusional (for lack of better word) things at night.

Anyways, I was beginning my first round by passing ice and sticking briefs when said patient calls me in his room. He usually never asks us for anything and is a really sweet man. I went in without turning on the lights because I thought maybe he was just dreaming. As I walked in I could see him laying in his bed with his eyes open looking at the corner of the ceiling. Although he can speak it's still hard to understand what he is saying sometimes because he mumbles and has a raspy voice. He points to the ceiling and says "tell that big black thing to stop biting me, damn thing bit my back!" So I look up (only light in the room is coming in from hallway) and I say "I don't hear or see a bug anywhere let me turn on the lights" and he says "he's right up there - (pointing to ceiling) - and he ain't no bug. And he lookin right atchu. Look out here he come, he comin right for you!" All I could do at that moment was take the mans advice and dart out of the room. My heart was pounding. As I ran out into the hall I ran smack into my coworker and told her what happened. We then both entered the room with lights on immediately after and asked him about the "bug" or "big black thing" on the ceiling. He showed us a spot on his back that looked red and irritated. He then said "he's gone now, he followed you out the door." Needless to say I was so freaked out for the rest of the night. The only logical explanation I have would be that maybe he was half asleep and a bug but him and he kinda dreamt it was something bigger and was in and out of sleep as he was talking to me. At least that's what I'd like to think!!

I have a lot more from work at the same place too that I've heard from coworkers, this particular one was just my own experience !! Eeeeek

Stocking briefs* not sticking lol

It took me QUITE AWHILE to get to the end of these. Finally reached the end and I'm sad... I love this thread...

Anybody else have have more to share?

Specializes in ICU.

I work PRN at a very small community hospital in their ICU. Everyone claims the hospital is haunted... maybe it is!

I was working in ICU alone the other night (total ICU census of two patients, so totally doable) when the monitor kept turning on in one of the empty rooms. The monitors can be turned on either at the desk or in the room, and they need to be touched in the room to be turned on. I've never had one come on by itself before. For the record, I had no tech, there were no other nurses around, and my patients were both totally out of it and not ambulatory. There were people over on med/surg, but they were separated from me by a door you have to use your badge to access, and I can hear when the doors unlock before someone comes through. I never heard the door unlock, so nobody could have snuck in without me noticing.

I spent half the night walking back in that room and turning the monitor off. It wouldn't come back on immediately, but usually within half an hour it would be active on the central monitoring again, like I (or someone else) had gone and manually turned it on. I was just annoyed that I had to keep walking back in there.

Honestly, I didn't even think about it at the time because I am about as spiritually aware as a rock, but looking back, I wonder if a former patient was trying to say hello. I haven't had any problems with the monitors coming on by themselves since then.

I am thinking I should invest in a tape recorder... maybe next time I'm there alone, I'll do an EVP session in that room. :)

CrystalMarieisme...this is not a ghost story but just a response to your post.

I am so terribly sorry for your loss. My sister had SJS and received horrible care (ironically at the hospital I work for). I watched her suffering day in and day out and it was excruciating. I am lucky in that she survived and fully recovered. I know on some level what you witnessed and know that you were of deep comfort to her. Let her be a comfort to you now.

My ghost story happened during my student years when I had one of my placements in a medsurg floor in an old hospital wing. I was just finishing off my evening shift and was on my way to the ladies change room. Some of my colleagues were already there, so I walked a long corridor to the change room. All of a sudden a notice a young boy run past me like he was being chased and it freaked me out bc he kinda startled me. So I watch as the boy run in towards the corner of the hall into the girls change room. I quickly ran to the room bc I mean there are all my nursing friends getting changed. As I got into the change room, I quickly asked my colleagues where the little boy went. They all just looked at me weirdly like I was crazy. I literally looked through each stall and bathroom but no trace of the boy. Even my friends were all freaked out. I even freaked myself out. I mean what would a little boy be doing in an old med surg floor at 11pm by a long dark hallway?

You all so so easily heebie-jeebied out.

I hope I get to hang around and be a ghost for a while after I kick the bucket. I'd have so much fun! I'll do things like make the ice machine suddenly dispense buckets of ice, open and close doors, make myself look like a big black blob on the ceiling, and make the printer spontaneously spew out multiple sheets of paper with the words "GETOUTGETOUTGETOUTGETOUT" printed all over it.

Specializes in Gerontology.

I always said I'd come back and haunt the hospital. I'd help the good nurses - calm agitated pts, help pts where I could. I'd hide the call bells on the pts that ring to have their water jugs moved 1 inch to the left.

For the bad, lazy ones, I'd sneak up behind them and put my icy hands on their necks. Or ran around ringing every call bell I could!

Specializes in Cardiac, ER, Pediatrics, Corrections.

This was a good laugh! Haha

+ Add a Comment