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...

In our facility, we used to have a resident that loved watching/listening to loud cartoons. Ever since she has passed away, the TV in her room, as well as others, turn on every once in a while to the same TV station at the same maximum volume. While it seems likely that a living person is doing this, nobody knows who it is...and therefore, we joke that it is the ghost of the deceased resident.

Ok this is my story christmas 2016 I was hanging around in my garage & I had a pic of my mom on the bench from her funeral you know the big

Portrait kind , I stared at it and said " come on mom if your here give me a sign not the dust ball in a pic sign but an unmistakable sign that you

Are watching over me.

Well I forgot about it and I was hanging in the kitchen with my sis & my gf & her daughters we were standing there ^& the huge bluish sparkly

Explosion happened just over our heads .

I was like what the hell was that ??? Then I realized what I asked for lol.

After that I went to the garage again and said " mom that was awesome but I still need one more thing to prove it >

As I go back into the house I hear " what the f$$$$k as my gfs daughter is holding a string of christmas lights in her hand

They were colored lights she plugged them in to see if they worked & they did .

Well she hung them up & plugged them in & they were clear ?????? She freaked out , I just smiled & looked up in the air

I admitted an elderly gentleman earlier in the day to our rehab unit. He was completely alert and oriented. No dementia. At one point, he casually mentions that he sees ghosts. Ooook....fast forward to end of shift, I was in his room changing a dressing on him. He mentions a lady next to me. Ummm....I was the only one in the room with him.

He briefly seemed surprised that I saw no one. He, in all seriousness, shrugged and said, "Well, she's right next to you by the door."

After this, I called my patient's daughter to question if he ever hallucinates. She said, "oh, is he saying he sees ghosts? He's done that his whole life."

Specializes in Intensive Care and Perianesthesia Care.

Man, I love these! Can't believe I just found this thread. It's my first nursing job in med/surg, code blue a few doors down, not my patient but I run to help. CPR has started and the nurse doing compressions is this tiny little thing so I ask if she wants me to take over, she doesn't hesitate to take me up on the offer. The patient is an older gentleman, I guessed mid eighties, there's these two middle-aged ladies who quickly leave the room (later find out that they're his daughters). The code team shows up. The doc walks up to the opposite side of the bed from me and starts to ask me questions about the patient that I don't know the answers to. So I look at him, and while I tell him that I'm not the patient's nurse, I notice this older lady standing by the window that I didn't see when I first walked in. She's in her eighties, wearing this blue and black sweater with a gold chain around her neck and we meet eyes for a second. She smiles at me. Now, you know that smile you might give someone that's kinda subtle and is really more a sign of sympathy than anything else? This was not that kind of smile, rather this lady actually appeared joyful, which I thought was weird. So this happens in just a short second or two and I get back to doing compressions. The guy never ends up getting ROSC and the efforts are eventually terminated. I hang around to help this nurse out with cleaning everything up. By this time the whole team is gone and it's just me, this nurse, the two daughters, and this man's body. The lady I saw, who I just assume is this guy's wife, is not in the room anymore. I'm gathering some of his things and I come across his glasses, I turn to the daughters and ask if Mrs. X would like to take them. They say no and begin to tell me that Mrs. X died just the summer before. So I apologize and explain that I just assumed that the lady with them was his wife, to which they appear confused and tell me that they came by themselves and that they were the only people in the room the entire day. No one recalls seeing a cheerful elderly lady standing by the window, or anywhere else for that matter. I like to think that maybe it was his wife just happy to be together again.

Specializes in ICU.

I’m absolutely gutted that I have reached the end of the thread. Come on folks let’s have more stories please x

Has anyone started watching Haunted Hospitals & Paranormal 911 on Travel Channel? Lots of nurses sharing their spooky stories...

I'm not a nurse or a doctor. But this thread has intrigued me.

I've 3 stories related to hospitals that I've experience and one during a wake.

My had an burst artery in his chest. This was when I was 25/26. I rushed to hospital finding my mom and sister already there. I remember reaching out mentally to him. The emergency folks was trying to revive him after his heart failed 2-3 times. I remember feeling in my hands that my dad's spirit left. When we were finally asked in to view my dad, my mom and sis still thought he was okay lying peacefully. I remember telling the doctors and nurses thanks for the effort they put in but I already felt him pass 20 minutes ago. They had a shocked face when they heard that.

I also seemed to have a way to know when a person will die in hospital.

A few years ago, my mom health been failing, my sis came to me to ask me if we should send my mom to hospital. I looked up and said she won't be coming back home this time. My mom was in hospital and was dying as her organs were slowly shutting down. Many relatives came over on Sunday to visit her and she(my mom) was very agitated and said repeatedly she wanted to go home. My relatives (most are Christians) said she might die tonight as she wants to go home to heaven. I got annonyed, I stretched out my hand and felt her energy, and then said "No she will die in 3 days most likely at night" True enough she died on Wednesday at 11pm.

Last year my uncle was in hospital and he had a severe lung infection. So for the first week or so they forbid visitors. Finally when I went to visit him, I realised he is going to die in 5 and a half weeks give or take. Over the subsequent weeks, he got better and started to walk and joked so everyone thought he was going to get out. At around 5 weeks, he suddenly got the infection again and died 2 days later. It shocked all the doctors how fast he faded.

Last story. This was during a wake. The person that died had cancer, she was my sister's good friend. I met her a few times during her last months. She was wasting away. During the wake, I approached the coffin to pay respects, I looked up and saw her standing across the coffin. I nodded to her and she came over and linked arms with me. She looked fully healthy and fleshed out very unlike the wasted look she had before she died. As with usual wake practices we sat at the round tables and she started to tell me stories of the people arriving at the wake. Later some of those people mingled with us and those stories that she told me, actually was retold by them. So I had validation she was tell me the truth.

No I wasn't afraid as it wasn't somebody I didn't know. She also looked happy, I think I was the only one that could see her hence she could talk to someone. Oh just for clarification, we talked mentally, I didn't have to vocalize the thoughts. I didn't really feel the arm linking, just like a light brushing sensation.

Specializes in cardiac.

I was at work on my cardiac unit, it was 6:00 p.m., and we had gotten a patient from the ED. He was an elderly man that was in horrible shape, he looked like he was dying. My friend who was his nurse had paged the Dr to receive orders. His call light was continually going off. The first time it rang I thought it was his neighbor in bed 2 because the patient was severely obtunded, my coworkers and I figured it wasn't him who pressed the call light. We went into the room to cancel it and I had remebered that the patient in bed 2 was discharged, so the only person in the room was the obtunded ED patient. I walked out and thought nothing of it. The call light went off again. I peaked in the room and the patient was still obtunded. I turned off the call light figuring that maybe he was laying on it and it accidentally got pressed. A while later the call light went off again. My friends and I all walked in the room to see why the call light kept going off. We all figured that he was either laying on it or something was hitting it. When we walked in the room we noticed the call light was no where near him. We freaked out but told ourselves that it couldn't be a scary coincidence.

Well, the call light kept going off every 5 minutes. We kept turning it off. The patient progressively looked worse and worse. We continued waiting for MD orders but he was taking a long time.

At 7:30 p.m. at the end of our shift the patient passed. He was DNR and DNI so when he coded they only called an RRT and no compressions started. The MD who responded to the RRT pronounced him dead.

We had no issues with the call light inside that room until the patient entered it. As soon as he entered the room, the call light kept going off non stop. It stopped ringing when he died.

Watching scary movies and reading these is an interesting combination, especially right before bed...

I was assigned a patient during my final clinical rotation before graduating nursing school. She was a pleasant elderly and frail individual. I entered her room during my rounds and she had the blanket pulled over her face, knuckles grasping the edge of the blanket. I announced myself and she pulled the blanket down enough to make eye contact with me.. I asked if she needed anything, if she wanted me to close the blinds. She pointed to the other corner of the room and said that there was a man behind the curtain that won't leave her alone. (It was a two bedroom and the bed closest to the door, the privacy curtain was completely closed around the bed.

The hair on my neck and arms instantly stood up, but I opened the curtain completely so that she could see no one was there.. she nodded and I left the room. I was passing meds and again made my way back to her room, she again had the blanket over her head. I calmly announced myself and asked if she needed anything, she pointed at me and said "You can tell that man to stop bothering me.." I asked her, where is the man? She pointed at me and said, "behind you, he's standing behind the balloons." I turned around and through the bathroom door, there was a group of about 20 balloons in the darkness of the bathroom.. I didn't see anything besides the balloons, but the intense feeling that ran through my body (and at this moment of writing this) when she pointed through me into the dark bathroom... I will never forget that..

That clinical rotation could not end soon enough.

Specializes in IT Consultant.

I'm not in the nursing field and a retiree.  But I have read with great interests all the stories told in this forum and was anticipating for more.

I just watch the 2019 movie 'Doctor Sleep' by Stephen King and there was a hospice scene that reminds me of some of the stories told here where a cat would go to residents that are about to pass and where one even said he saw his death love ones just before he past.

Thanks to those who had contributed and those that had kept this forum alive.  Really looking forward for more stories.

Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
On 1/24/2022 at 7:55 PM, NotNurse said:

I'm not in the nursing field and a retiree.  But I have read with great interests all the stories told in this forum and was anticipating for more.

I just watch the 2019 movie 'Doctor Sleep' by Stephen King and there was a hospice scene that reminds me of some of the stories told here where a cat would go to residents that are about to pass and where one even said he saw his death love ones just before he past.

Thanks to those who had contributed and those that had kept this forum alive.  Really looking forward for more stories.

If you think the movie was good read the book. Read The Shining first as Dr. Sleep is a sequel!

 

Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).

Since childhood I have had many experiences that have led me to believe I am sensitive to certain energies. I have encountered things that can be called ghosts in the home I grew up in which was built by prison inmates and whose owner was later murdered in the house. He was a benevolent spirit who often intervened when my abuser became particularly cruel. My first "Job" in healthcare was as a Candy Striper (Anyone remember those) in a Catholic hospital that was originally a tuberculosis sanitarium. I have felt and seen things that cannot be explained by coincidence or science. I mostly don't tell these stories because people write me off as a nutjob.

A few years ago I attended a nursing conference in Phoenix AZ. I stayed in the oldest continually operating hotel in the city. The lobby actually looked like something out of American Horror Story: Hotel. I inquired of the desk clerk if the hotel was haunted and he invited me to a moonlight Edgar Allen Poe reading on the roof which would be followed by a seance. I eagerly said I would attend. It seems that a guest had committed suicide by jumping from the penthouse roof and there were rumors that the bodies of two children who went missing in the 20's were later found in the basement. The clerk told me that sometimes at night guests would report children's voices and the pitter patter of little feet in the hallways. 

So after the seance that night when I had retired to bed I heard what I thought sounded like children's voices in the hallway. I had seen no families with children in the hotel and initially thought it was someone's television. Finally unable to sleep I opened my door and softly said "Can you guys knock it off, I need to rest for a conference tomorrow. I'll be happy to entertain you tomorrow night!" I went back to bed and did not hear a peep for the rest of the night. I might add that I don't drink or do drugs.

Hppy

 

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