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 Everything but L&D and OR.

OK, what is a little creepy is that when I actually tried to post that last message about Amityville, my computer totally locked up and would not do anything! I am at work and these are like some really great computers. I have never had one do that.

Christine

My wife had a creepy experience a few years ago. She and another nurse were on duty at an inpatient hospice facility. One of their patients was dying and the immediate family was in the room with him. Well, he passed away and the family said their goodbyes. The family stepped out of the room and my wife and the other nurse went in to prep him for other family that was coming. This was about 15 minutes after he drew his last breath and his heart stopped. As they straightened his sheets his right arm rose, bending at the elbow, and he itched the side of his nose with his index finger. Then his arm relaxed in the bent position. Both nurses saw this and my wife turned to her coworker and said, "Don't you dare leave without me." They quickly finished their work and left the room together.

My high school chemistry teacher would tell us he had a friend who was a mortician and would sometimes get people who would sit straight up on the stretcher as he was starting to embalm them. He always giggled when he told this so I never knew if he was telling the truth.

I had heard the Amityville story was a known hoax...what's up with that?

A little off topic but true...........When I was 10 years old, I was abused by my stepfather. He was a very evil, mean & cruel man. Full of hatred and always said that he was going to kill me one day. I was so afraid of him that I used to run and try to hide from him whenever he came home and I always prayed and asked God to protect me from him. One day I was sitting on my bed alone in my bedroom coloring in a coloring book. All of the sudden, I looked up from my coloring book and I saw an angel in the doorway to my bedroom. He was very tall and so beautiful with blond curly hair and wore a white robe with a gold belt that looked like rope. He was so tall, I estimate at least 7 or 8 feet, he had to bend down a little under the door frame to look at me. He also had huge white wings. I was very scared but I knew that what I was looking at was an angel. He did not speak to me but just looked at me in a very peaceful and knowing way. I was so scared that I could not speak. I just looked down at my coloring book and when I looked up again, he was gone. I'm 47 now and I have never seen him again but there has never been a day that has passed that I have not thought of him. I always have wondered my whole life why he came to me and the only thing that I can think of is that he was there to reassure and protect me. I never told anyone about this until I became an adult. Shortly after I saw this angel, my mother left this abusive man and we moved away. I never saw my stepfather again. I have also almost died several times. I almost drowned twice at age 11 and again at age 12. I was hit by a car and coded after surgery as an adult. I have many times felt a "presence" with me. I know angels are real and I belive they are here to protect us and they are messengers from God. I have taken care of many dying patients in my 20 years as a nurse. I have had a few patients tell me that they could hear beautiful voices singing just before they died. I believe those are angels.

nursing related or not does anyone just ever just get the feeling that they are not alone, yet there is not another soul around? I do. :stone

I have had some ghostly encounters but more often than not it is just a feeling. Does any get what I am saying?:confused:

I absolutely feel that way at work but only at night if I go to the cafeteria alone. It is closed except for vending machines. There are big glass windows all around. I always feel like someone is watching me through those windows. I never feel that way in any other area of the hospital, windows or not. It is a very strange feeling and just started recently in the past few months.

Specializes in NICU, PICU, MNICU.
I saw the unit clock and the hands of the clock were running counterclockwise, i.e., backward, and at a rapid rate. The hospital had the main clock somewhere in the basement, and the other clocks in the house were running correctly, clockwise, so this was the only clock that was running so oddly. Well, the older RN tells me "...to wait and see what happens". Sure enough, within about 15 minutes there is a code 99 called on another floor. It seemed that, only during the night shift, if and when that particular clock ran backwards, someone would arrest and die! Gulp!

That reminded me of a sad situation from my first year of nursing. I was working in the NICU on a 3-11 shift as an extra (usually had a 7a-7p shift). I chatted with the woman next to me, as she had my previous day's assignment. Near the end of her shift we noticed that the clocks were going backwards. This was within a day of daylight savings time, so we just attributed it to that. The clocks would get reset, and then within about 15 minutes they would start to go backwards and reset again.

I said goodbye to her and the rest of my friends at the end of my shift. I later left at 2300 and was off for a few days. The next day on the news, there was a missing person's bulletin for her. Years later, they found a part of a bone in a riverbed near her route home and theorized that her car had run off the road and she had been swept away. Yes, it really doesn't make sense, but that's all that we ever heard about it.

I'd never thought of the backwards clocks as having any special significance - just a moment to joke with her. Creepy!

Specializes in Med/Surg.
Dear Jess1983,

Thank you for sharing that. It was very beautiful and touching. It is amazing how similar our stories and angels are!

:-)

I guess God watches over his own. maybe he knew that we were destined to help people.

I guess God watches over his own. maybe he knew that we were destined to help people.

Dear Jess1983,

I think you are absolutely right! ;)

Specializes in Forensics.
:chair: :behindpc: :sofahider ohhh that must be very scary just living by that horror house!! Danielle RN, Is someone living in that house right now for real??!!

hahaha. At least it's not next door or anything. :)

Yes, someone lives there right now. :eek:

Specializes in Med/Surg.
Yes, someone lives there right now. :eek:

:sofahider They sure are brave!!!!!!

nursing related or not does anyone just ever just get the feeling that they are not alone, yet there is not another soul around? I do. :stone

I have had some ghostly encounters but more often than not it is just a feeling. Does any get what I am saying?:confused:

Yes, I've had that feeling before and I still swear that someone WAS looking at me. We were traveling to FL to see relatives and we stayed in an empty mobile home across from my uncle. The last person to live there had died of lung CA in the home.

One night I'm reading a book, and all the of the sudden, everything became very quiet around me and I got this feeling that I wasn't alone. I didn't have the guts to look up from my book, but I know that someone else was in the room with me... someone who had passed on checking out his former residence.

This thread has been going on so long, I forgot if I posted this one earlier! A nursing aid and I were working evening shift at a LTC facility. Just before our shift ended at 11 p.m., we each went into adjoining rooms for a final bed check. As I entered the room I was shocked to see an 'orb' (which was a transparent gold sparkly color) go flying across the room. It had come through the wall, flew across the room and disappeared through the opposite wall. Astonished, I went back out into the hall just as my co-worker appeared from the room she was checking. Both of us, at the very same time said "I think I just saw a ghost!" She described the same orb doing the same thing, came through one wall, moved across the room, then disappeared into the wall between the rooms we were checking. :eek: One of our coworkers swore it must have been a reflection of headlights. I think not! At least I had an eye witness to this one!

Keep these stories coming. i love them all.

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