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...

Specializes in RN, CHPN.

Several years ago, my dad passed away after a battle with prostate cancer. Since I was a hospice nurse, I took care of him and then stayed for a while to help my mom through a period of disabling grief.

Two nights after he died, my mom walked into her bedroom and then came out abruptly, walking backward, screaming "Dad's here! Dad's here!" The cog wheels in my brain froze up for a moment as I tried to comprehend what she was saying. I went into her bedroom and I didn't see my dad -- all I saw was my dog sitting on the bed.

My mom came in and pointed out the way the linens were turned down into a fancy W-shape. She told me that she and my dad had gone on a cruise several years earlier, and that each night when they were at dinner an attendant would turn down their linens JUST LIKE THEY WERE RIGHT NOW and leave chocolates on their pillows.

And she said that every single night since then, my dad turned down their bed just like it was done on the cruise, to show her that every day with her was special to him.

I thought that my mom, in her semi-delirious mental state, had done the turn-down herself and just forgot that she had, but she vehemently denied it.

What was curious is that my dog was sitting on the bed......and her footprints were all over it......as if she had done some real maneuvering......

My mom said, "Prissy did it! Now all she needs to do is fluff the pillows." My dog looked my mom in the eye for a few seconds......and then she turned and fluffed my mother's pillow.

So you know I am not lying, I somehow had the presence of mind to take photographs, and here is one taken just as Prissy did her pillow-fluffing stuff:

(Prissy, seen here apparently possessed by my dad's spirit, putting the finishing touches on her fancy turn-down. Admittedly, this turn-down does not meet Royal Caribbean standards, but it's pretty darn good for a poodle.)

When Prissy began fluffing the pillow, my mom lost it and went into hysterics. I looked at Prissy and said, "Dad, please tone it down because you're going to give mom a heart attack!"

Well, dad did tone it down. Every single night for the next six weeks, 'Prissy' only turned down my MOM's side of the bed. No more fancy-shmancy, all-out, luxury cruise ship turn-downs...just simple, modest little turn-downs. Every night, like clockwork.

Now I will say that my dog is no slouch. She's much smarter than the average dog. She can shake hands and she can do a double rollover. But she does NOT do fancy cruise-ship turn-downs, or even less fancy ones. Those are simply not in her repertoire.

One day after 6 weeks of this bed-turn-down phenomena, Prissy suddenly stopped doing it. It was as if a switch had been flipped to "off," and that was that.

A friend of my mom's came from out of town to visit, and my mom told her the turn-down story. The woman gasped and said, "Don't you know? The Tibetan Book of the Dead says that after death, a person's spirit stays in an "in-between place" for approximately 42 days before departing for the next realm." That's exactly how long my dog turned down the bed -- 6 weeks, or 42 days.

What else can explain what happened, except that my father's spirit was acting through my dog, Prissy, to tell my mother how special he thought she was?

Prissy has never turned down another bed since that time. But I guess that's because she doesn't have a clue how to do turn-downs.

But my dad did.

©2014 All rights reserved. Please don't publish this story or photo, as I am planning to at some point. Thank you.

Wow, Missy, that is an amazing story!

All my dogs do is hog the bed...

Specializes in RN, CHPN.
SnowballDVM said:
Wow, Missy, that is an amazing story!

All my dogs do is hog the bed...

That's all Prissy does now, too. If she ever turns down my bed, I will run screaming out the door.

Another thing she did during that time:

My mom said the worst time for her was in the middle of the night, when she was alone and couldn't sleep. Unbeknownst to me, Prissy would leave my bed at those times and go sit with my mom, gaze into her eyes, and lick her tears away. My mom said Prissy was more helpful than anyone else had been; she found her quiet, attentive presence more of a comfort than any human was during that time. Perhaps that was my dad too, but it could have just been Prissy, because that's the way she's always been.

I'm all out of ghost stories, unless something new comes up. I'm looking forward to everyone else's stories -- Love this thread!

Dogs can be amazingly comforting. Whether or not they are acting on someone's behalf! I'm glad your mom had you and Prissy and your dad's spirit to comfort her at such a difficult time.

My beagle left the bed last night, unbeknownst to me, and went downstairs, where he pulled a box of cookies out of the grocery bag...typical beagle!

I work in a 60 year old nursing home. A few months ago on the evening shift a resident on G wing put on her call light. When the staff answered her call she said "Get that girl out of here" The resident was asked to describe her. She said that she was about 10 or 11years old with long blonde hair. On the same shift on unit H a resident put on her call light. When staff answered the call the resident said "A little girl had just come out of my bathroom and ran up to me with a ring in her hand. Then she ran out of the room". The resident stated that the whole thing happened so fast that she did not get a good look at her, except that she had long blonde hair. Staff asked her if she may have been dreaming. The resident stated that it was no dream. It really happened. A few hours later on the night shift I was on that night. About 3 AM one of the unit staff (on unit H) told me that another resident put on her call light and informed staff that a little girl came up to her and told her that she was going to come back sometime and when she does she will take her ring. That resident described the girl to be about 11 years old with long blonde hair. When the RN saw me later on that night she said to me "Well, I guess we have some spooks here!" I told this to my husband. He said that before the nursing home was built there was an orphanage in the same area. Evidently many children in that orphanage died of diseases as it was in the early 1900's. There have been previous reports from residents about seeing small children in the nursing home.

I'm not a nurse but you guys have the best ghost stories. I've been a follower for a long time!

I'm so very sorry for all you are going through. All I can tell you is to keep fighting if your not ready. I have to tell you hon, I really have had to get used to having faith in " God's timing in situations like this. When I was a new paramedic, I will never forget after a particularity tragic call, we were all emotionally and physically exhausted, and I was so very frustrated. The call had been for an MVA. It was on a back country road and our response time from town was about 25 mins in good weather. Except this is a mountain snowstorm. No visibility at all. Anyway we had 6 PTs upon arrival. 2 parents 4 kids. They stated they slid off the road and into a tree. I distinctly remember them both smelling heavily of alcohol. There was a 6 year old trauma code. The parents said they didn't realize their son was hurt so neglected to call 911 to report the accident until the boy turned blue. The thing was, bless his sweet little heart, his little thumb had been amputated in the accident, and was barely hanging on by skin, so I call BS. Anyway, the child had been in the back of the pickup truck and the truck had a metal toolbox attached in back. Anyway the boy had flown into the metal toolbox striking his abdomen. He coded several times and we worked him for 2 hours in the ER, trying to stabilize him enough that my partner and I could get the little boy about 70 miles south to where there was a break in the storm and the helicopter could meet us to transport the boy to an appropriate trauma facility as our little hospital was a level 4. Anyway, we just couldn't.i remember at one point having to calm myself mentally because my compressions were getting too fast at about 200 bpm. Anyway when it was all said and done, we brought the parents in to say goodbye. I will never forget the putrid, sickening smell of rotgut alcohol rushing over me as the father bent and said "come on buddy, you will be fine! Hang in there!" I guess completely not realizing he was already gone. I will also never forget the little guy had drawn "chickenpox" all over his body in orange marker. Anyway we were all kind of teary and the ER nurse that used to be a paramedic looking at me and saying, " if you are ever going to be able to get through this career you are going to have to believe that in taking him here in now, God in all His wisdom was being merciful and saving him from some worse fate down the road later on." It has always helped me. So the weird little aspect to this story, was a couple days later I'm home with my then 4 year old son, and he's playing, and I go to take his shoes and socks off for his bath and see he his covered the tops of both of his feet with black marker. He said it was dinosaur feet lol. Anyway I'm not really sure why I felt compelled to share all that but I pray it helps you in some way. Keep fighting and I hope you are able to go on your own soon!

Sorry I posted that as a reply to FranNurses post

Hello all! I've posted on this thread before, a while back, with just one story. I'll repost that one and all a few more! Here goes!

Story Number 1

I was newly out of nursing school and just started being charge nurse on med-surg when this incident occurred. On our med-surg unit, night shift charge takes the same patient load as all of the other nurses. On the first night of my weekend trio of shifts, I had assigned myself a patient that I'll call Mrs. G. Mrs. G. was a morbidly obese lady with a small bowel obstruction who had refused to have an NG tube placed. No big deal, really, I guess, since she was NPO and not having and n/v at the time. She was as sane as you and me. Anyway, I got the creepiest feeling from her that Friday night for some reason. She said something about how she usually talks to her dead mother (which I don't think is strange at all). Like I said, she just gave me an uneasy feeling.

Fast fwd to the next night. For some reason she had changed rooms, so I didn't mind one bit to assign her to another nurse. At one point during the night, she had pressed the call button. I couldn't understand what she said over the intercom, so I walked down to her room to see what she had asked for. She wanted some water, so I went and got her some. When I came back to the room, she told me something that I thought was awfully peculiar. I can remember exactly what she said: "They had a party for me today." I asked, "Who did?" She replies (with a huge smile on her face) "My friends and family. Some I haven't seen in 20 years!" I say "Wow! They must have come from far away!" I know that my eyes got huge when she clarified-- "No! They have been dead for that long! It was the most beautiful party."

It really made me wonder why a 40-something year old seemingly sane woman would say something like this. I got my answer about two hours later when a white-faced co-worked walked out of Mrs. G's room and yelled that we needed to call a code. It was too late for Mrs. G. It looked like she had died at least thirty minutes before we found her. I immediately understood what she meant by her "party." It must have been a going away party!!

Story Number 2

It was a pretty slow night on the med surg floor. There were only two of us working on the 3rd floor, another nurse and myself. The third floor ends with a window to the outside on one side and locked double doors to the L&D ward on the other. I was in the room closest to the l&d ward, on the B side of the room (A bed was empty) fiddling with my patient's IV pump. The curtain dividing the room was pulled. I didn't think much about it when i heard rusting and footsteps around bed A, as I thought it was the other nurse getting the bed ready for an admission that they must have called about while I was busy. I said, "Are we getting one?"... no answer. I yanked the curtain back and NOBODY was there! The B bed patient and I looked at each other, confused. I stepped out of the room and saw the other nurse way down at the nurses station, doing her charting, just like I had left her. I called out, "Were you just in here??!" She said no. I asked if anyone else was on the floor except for us. Another no answer. I never figured out who (or what!) was right beside me on the other side of the curtain!

Story 3:

Same floor as the two stories above. I had a patient that was admitted to our unit to die. It always made me sad for patients to die alone, with no family, so I put an 02 sat monitor on him to alarm once his 02 sat dropped below 50 or 60%, can't remember which specifically. Anyway, I was doing rounds and opened his door to peek in on him. The room was dark and the hall light on, so naturally my shadow was cast on the wall opposite me. That particular night I was working with a very tall, very stout coworker. While i was peeking in, a VERY large, tall shadow in the shape of a person covered mine on the wall. I spun around thinking that my fellow nurse was behind me, but there was nobody :nailbiting:.

Story 4:

I happened to be working in the psych unit one night with two techs. We were all sitting at the front end of the hall, charting, talking, etc. We all heard what could be described as something being dropped. One of the techs got up and made her way down the hall to try to find the source of the noise. She found everyone (12 bed unit) fast asleep. We heard the noise again, this time louder. I took off this time, determined to figure out what was going on. I briefly noted a pair of sneakers on the floor in a room to my left. I walked on, peeking in rooms, when i heard the noise again, louder and behind me. I turned around quickly and walked back toward the room with the sneakers in the floor. this time, they were both in different positions on the floor. The patient that was in that bed was still fast asleep--it couldn't have been him throwing the shoes around, because he was a max assist transfer into bed. I ran as fast as I could down the hall back to the techs and wouldn't go anywhere by myself for the rest of the night.

Stories 4 & 5:

Med surg floor again, sitting at the desk with my coworker not long after shift change. The floor was very light that night, only about 5 patients. Two men in a room together to the left of the nurses station, and three ladies in separate rooms to the right. All of a sudden, a LOUD AND ANGRY male voice was heard by my coworker and me "CRYYYYSTALLLLLLL!" it growled. We looked at each other, terrified, with big eyes and practically ran into the room with the two men patients. We startled them, coming in so fast. One was texting away on his cell phone, one was flipping channels. We asked which one of them yelled. Neither had! We checked all of the other patients, all ladies, mind you, and they said they hadn't called out. We went through all the empty rooms and found nothing. Another night, not long after that, another nurse and I heard loud sobbing. We checked all of the rooms and found nobody crying.

Story 6:

I'm a home health nurse now, and this happened a few years ago. I was going to a patient's house that I had never been to before. I pulled up to what looked to be the main entrance, a screened in room to the side of the house. There were tall shelves against the windows to that room. I noticed the figure of a cat walking across the tops of the shelves pretty quickly toward the screen door that I was about to open, so, not wanting to let the cat out, I decided to go to the front door instead. I walked around the house to the front door and the man who answered (the patient) looked like he was kind of confused that I used that door instead of the one that I pulled up to. I explained that I didnt want to let the cat out. He said something like, "Honey, there hasn't been a cat that's lived here in three years!" I told him that I was certain that I'd just seen a cat walking across the tops of the shelves. We sat in that room for his visit just so he could prove to me that there was no (living) cat there!

Last story:

Med surg floor again, and there was a call light on a hall that was no longer used that would ring from time to time. We would always just cancel it out at the nurses station and blame it on the ghost. Well, one night it rang, and I guess I was feeling brave, so I marched down there determined to catch a glimpse of the ghost in the room. I swing the door open. A figure sat up slowly from the bed (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Turns out that it was an out-of-town lady from the transplant team waiting for someone who was on life support to be taken off because he was a donor. I seriously thought that I was going to faint when I saw the "ghost" sit up in the bed.

That one would freak me out! Sorry I was responding to an earlier comment and didn't realize my reply would go at the end of the feed :)

I am not a nurse but I have read this entire thread and I'm fascinated by the stories. (And I do believe them, or almost all of them anyway.) I would like to share my own experience. I was working at a mental health clinic some years ago, and one day I was walking down the hall and out of the corner of my eye I saw a young man in jeans and a ball cap entering the conference room where we held drug and alcohol group meetings. I knew there was no meeting scheduled at that time, so I went to the room to inform the client and ask him to come back later in the day, but the room was empty. Oh, well, I was mistaken, a trick of the light or my imagination, I think nothing of it. Several hours later I heard one of the therapists crying and people trying to comfort her. One of her drug/alcohol clients had committed suicide. I had never met the client in question and I don't know what he looked like, I don't even know if he was a member of that particular group that was going to meet that afternoon, but I have sometimes wondered if he decided to attend the drug/alcohol meeting regardless, even though he had already passed away. The young man I thought I saw entering the conference room looked solid and real, down to the color of his shirt and his dirty red ball cap. I never told anyone this because they would have thought I was nuts.

Thank you all for sharing your stories.

Do you believe, there are more happenings during the holidays? Such as Christmas??

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