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...

My grandpa died last Feburary and as he was dying my mom was sitting with him and he called out to his cousin who died years ago. My mom said it was like he was seeing her and told him to go see her, which he did as he died minutes later.

I don't think he went far though as my grandma woke up a few weeks ago to "hear" someone humming a song she knew. She got up and turned all the lights on in the house but she could still hear it, then she realized she could hear my grandpa singing a hymn that they both loved. She started singing with him and they sung the whole hymn together and then the sound stopped. She said that she was not scared at all and just feels that grandpa was telling her he was alright and was still looking out for her. The thing is that grandma is totally deaf without her hearing aids in and doesn't wear them to bed but she heard grandpa and knows she was fully awake durring this experience.

Oh geez.... that one really made me tear up! (but in a good way!)

Also, you should consider contacting serious researchers in haunting/parapsychology about that incident. You have multiple witnesses seeing something that cannot be explained by any conceivable rational explanation (a guy floats, speaks demonically, dies, and comes back to life). Were it properly documented and recorded for posterity this would probably go down as one of the most dramatic incidents in parapsychology in American history.

The rose petals just started floating down from the ceiling. It was like someone was just showering the room with them. This has happened several times over the years.

My creepiest and scariest ghost story for me happened about a year ago. It really was more of a posession than a ghost story. I was helping another nurse with a patient that had lived a very hard life. It had numerous things going on with him from cardiac to renal failure. You name it, he had it going on. This man was very much afraid to die. Every time his heart monitor beeped, he would just go into a rage screaming, "Don't let me die! Don't let me die!" The other nurse and I found out why he didn't want to die. About 0200 his cardiac monitor starts alarming V-Tach. We both rush into the room. I am pulling the crash cart behing me. When I get to the room, the other nurse is completely white. This man was sitting about 2 inches above the bed and was laughing. His whole look completely changed. His eyes just had a look of pure evil on them and he had this evil smile on his face. He laughed at us and said, " You stupid b****es aren't going to let me die will you?" and he laughed again. We were kinda frozen. I did reach up and hit the Code Blue button and when I did the man went into V-fib. He crashed back onto the bed. We started coding him, but after 20 minutes it was called. 5 minutes after the code was called several of the code team is in the room cleaning up when this man sits straight up in the bed and says, " You let him die. Too bad." and then begins laughing. The man collapsed back to the bed. We heard a horrible, agonizing scream ( actually every patient in the unit that night commented on the scream), and then you could hear "don't let me die" being whispered throughout the unit. Everyone of the nurses that night was pale and scared. No body went anywhere by themselves. By morning the whispers of "don't let me die" were gone. The night shift nurses had a prayer service in the break room before we left for home and then we all had nightmares for weeks.

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

it makes me sad beyond belief that it is possible that after life, spirits are that bound and trapped to the hospital/LTC. I would hope desperately to have moved on to the Afterlife/Otherside and have left all that behind me once I have died. These stories just sadden me. I hope I am not doomed to be trapped there after being dead.

I worked in a small rural hospital, on a med/surg unit right out of nursing school. I worked nights 7p-7a, which tends to be somewhat of a "creepy" shift anyway because typically, it's dark everywhere in the hospital at night. Our floor had two halls (evens & odds) and on this particular night I had patients at the end of both halls. The very last rooms at the end of each hall were negative pressure rooms for TB or other isolation patients, etc. We hadn't put any patients in those rooms for probably a month or so, and our ped's unit had been using one of the rooms as a storage room for extra cribs and other equipment. I was making a round checking on my patients at the end of halls and I could see a tv on in one of the isolation rooms that was being used as storage. I walked up and peaked in the window and you could hear the tv blasting; the weather channel of all things! I freaked out and ran down to the nurses station and refused to go anywhere near that room the rest of the night.

Another story that happened in the same hospital: We had a patient on the odd wing that had come in with abd. pain. The docs couldn't really find anything wrong with this guy, but he refused to be discharged, so they kept him there for a while. I came in at 7 one night and got report from his day shift nurse, who informed me that while she had been in his room passing his med's, he asked her if anyone had died in the other bed in the room. She of course said that was very likely that someone had died there, and he looked at her and said, "I kinda figured, cause she's sitting on the edge of the bed right now." The day shift nurse said she got freaked and left the room asap.

We had other stuff on that unit that would happen like the bathroom sink in one room would come on and off by itself with no patients in that room, call lights going off in unoccupied rooms. And the LTC which was the floor above the one I worked on, said their residents always talked about "the man in black" before they died.....

Specializes in Telemetry/Med Surg.

These aren't nursing-related stories but they've happened to me.

I used to work for this guy--wonderful person and he became like a 2nd father to me (my father having passed several years before). He would give me advice, build up my confidence and we became great friends--also with this wife and the rest of his family. We were all very close. He became sick with cancer and was in the hospital; his wife, wanting to make sure someone would be with him 24 hours started making up a list of people she would ask. I was #1 on the list. During the night, the day before I was to go and sit with him, I woke up saying to myself that I have to get ready to see Jack. I tried to sit up in bed and distinctly felt this gentle hand pushing me back down. It was a very strange feeling but I knew that Jack had died. I lay there crying until morning when I got the dreaded phone call. Broke my heart. I still miss him terribly. :o

another one--my childhood girlfriend who I hadn't seen in about 25 years--I had a dream that her mom had died (I hadn't seen her mom for even a longer amt of time). Something made me look her up and when I finally did talk to her, I asked about her mom and that's when she told me that she died on the night of that dream.

Specializes in floor to ICU.

we had an elderly 102 yr old in our hospital who kept talking out the "white birds from Jesus" she prattled on and on about these white birds. Later that day I went in to check on her and found her sleeping. I looked outside the window and sure enough a white bird came and landed on the ledge. She passed later that night.

How in the world did he hit them twice?

I'm not entirely sure how it happened. My grandmother was hit twice. I think that the driver (a 16 y.o. female) was distracted that she hit them once, my grandmother was actually able to get up after the first hit and went to aid my grandfather when the driver swerved and somehow hit them both again. It doesn't make sense, I know, but they were hit twice. :bluecry1:

I'm not entirely sure how it happened. My grandmother was hit twice. I think that the driver (a 16 y.o. female) was distracted that she hit them once, my grandmother was actually able to get up after the first hit and went to aid my grandfather when the driver swerved and somehow hit them both again. It doesn't make sense, I know, but they were hit twice. :bluecry1:

Was she ever charged with vehicular manslaughter?

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
in august of 1998, the end was near for him. my mother and aunt are with him. they start talking in the living room while hospice was there for a visit. they said to each other that it was 10 years ago today that my grandmother died. my grandfather had lost all sense of time and my aunt goes in and tells him, "it was 10 years ago today that mom died." he then quietly passed away. it was as if he was waiting for the anniversary of my grandmother's death so he could go join her. it was ok for him to go.

you know, i think a lot of folks wait to die until someone "gives them permission" to do so. years ago, when i was working in eastern washington state, i had a patient who had been on vacation in western montana when he arrested in the middle of the night. he was down for awhile, i guess. he was airlifted to our hospital. i got rather close to this man's family -- wife, sons, step-sons, daughters-in-law (or were they step-daughters-in-law?) it was a lovely family.

i think you can tell a lot about a comatose patient by what their family is like. but that's an issue to be taken up in another thread..

the patient wasn't quite brain dead. if he were, it would have been easier. he wasn't waking up, and neuro saw no hope for a meaningful recovery. his kidneys failed, and renal got involved. his wonderful family was supportive of each other, and took turns sitting at the bedside, reading to and talking to dad. meanwhile, his organs were failing and his family was being run into the ground by the ordeal. the time came when one of the sons approached me about letting dad go. a family meeting ensued, and dad was made a dnr. after a couple more days, the family decided to withdraw care. and still dad hung on. his wife and two sons were in the room one day when i was caring for dad.

"how long can this go on?" they asked me, in anguish. i had no answer for them. "but," i told them, "sometimes i think people hang on because of their families. they don't want to leave you, or they're afraid they have to stay to protect you. maybe if you tell him that you'll be ok without him, and that you're letting him go he'll be able to leave."

tearfully, the family told dad what a wonderful husband and father and step-father he'd always been, and how much they loved him. then they gave him permission to go to god. and just like that, his breathing eased and he passed. the family was so grateful to me for taking such care of dad, and of them. and i've never forgotten that family. i feel as if i witnessed a miracle.

ruby

My creepiest and scariest ghost story for me happened about a year ago. It really was more of a posession than a ghost story. I was helping another nurse with a patient that had lived a very hard life. It had numerous things going on with him from cardiac to renal failure. You name it, he had it going on. This man was very much afraid to die. Every time his heart monitor beeped, he would just go into a rage screaming, "Don't let me die! Don't let me die!" The other nurse and I found out why he didn't want to die. About 0200 his cardiac monitor starts alarming V-Tach. We both rush into the room. I am pulling the crash cart behing me. When I get to the room, the other nurse is completely white. This man was sitting about 2 inches above the bed and was laughing. His whole look completely changed. His eyes just had a look of pure evil on them and he had this evil smile on his face. He laughed at us and said, " You stupid b****es aren't going to let me die will you?" and he laughed again. We were kinda frozen. I did reach up and hit the Code Blue button and when I did the man went into V-fib. He crashed back onto the bed. We started coding him, but after 20 minutes it was called. 5 minutes after the code was called several of the code team is in the room cleaning up when this man sits straight up in the bed and says, " You let him die. Too bad." and then begins laughing. The man collapsed back to the bed. We heard a horrible, agonizing scream ( actually every patient in the unit that night commented on the scream), and then you could hear "don't let me die" being whispered throughout the unit. Everyone of the nurses that night was pale and scared. No body went anywhere by themselves. By morning the whispers of "don't let me die" were gone. The night shift nurses had a prayer service in the break room before we left for home and then we all had nightmares for weeks.[/quote/]

OMG!!!

:eek: :uhoh3:

I would have had nightmares for YEARS after seeing that! It probably would have scared me into going to church every sunday for the rest of my life! This has to be the scariest story I have ever heard in my life!!

If I was witness to that I wouldn't be alive now. I would have literally $h*t myself to death. My sphincter blown right out my behind, giving one last merry toot as it blew in the wind.

That has to be the scariest story I have ever heard.

If I was witness to that I wouldn't be alive now. I would have literally $h*t myself to death. My sphincter blown right out my behind, giving one last merry toot as it blew in the wind.

That has to be the scariest story I have ever heard.

:roll :rotfl:

Cindy

Was she ever charged with vehicular manslaughter?

Yes, the 16 y.o. was charged with 1 count of vehicular manslaughter and did not serve jail time.

+ Add a Comment