Whats your best nursing ghost story?

I have to admit I turned the lights on after reading some of these stories.....lol.......I work in the MICU and we get some really really sick pts...I haven't actually seen any ghost but my unit has some ghost stories....but from experience I've learned that when a pt tells you they're going to die...they usually do...and if they start talking to dead family members...they usually die...it's like the family members have come to take them.....

A couple of stories from the unit.... In bed 3 there was a homeless pt "Willy" who thanks to modern medicine was kept alive for I believe around 3 mos....(no family to stop care)....Willy eventually died but pts who are in bed 3 will talk about their friend Willy who brought them a blanket or stopped by to talk....Bed 3 is at the end of the unit and has an ante room before you go in...You can't see directly in Bed 3 unless you're in the ante room or looking at the room on the monitor...One night with no pt in Bed 3 the monitor flips to the room and a body was seen laying over the side of the bed (over the side rails).....kind of floating...the room was checked and no one was there......
Another night a nurse who has worked in the unit a few years saw someone sitting in a chair behind the door in Bed 3 with their legs crossed...she wondered since we have limited visiting hours how a family member got in the room...she went in the room and no one was there....needless to say she was freaked out....
There was also another pt who was a young woman in her 20s who contracted necrotizing faciitis (flesh eating disease) from one of her kids who had strep....She was in the unit a while and eventually died....One of the nurses coming on to the next shift wanted to know why the pt was standing on the backside of the unit with her twin daughters holding their hands.....(wondering how she made such a miraculous recovery).....she was informed the pt had died earlier that day.....

My hubby actually had a good one, not a ghost story per say, but a scary sight in a room one night long ago!

My hubby (who is a paramedic) was a Corpman in the Navy working in a old naval hospital in med surge. One night a very old demented man was just done with his shower and the orderly hadn't turned off the old heat lamp in the bathroom...so that night there was a red glow in the room with the gent.

Now the gent slept naked, and as my hubby passed by to check on him the patient was in his room upright in bed stretching his arms up and groaning. My hubby said it looked like satan rising from the bed! LOL!!!!!!! He grabbed the other corpmen to check it out and they felt the same way...and it all gave them the ebbie geebies despite knowing the reason for the scene! LOL!!!!!

I thought that was a cute one!

Years ago I worked nights on a LTC unit. No one ever used their call lights there. We always seemed to know when we would have a death, because the nursecall system would go haywire. It would start bleeping, not even a real ring, like half bleeps. No where would it light up to a room. Just the sound.
(The call system was checked several times and we were always told it was fine.)We would immediately make a round and sure enough someone would be gone. Most of our vets were DNR's, rarely had a code. It almost seemed liked someone just wanted let us that know someone had passed. It was so common it wasn't creepy after awhile. Also on a couple of occasions a coworker and myself while sitting outside on a break saw a dark figure moving across the parking lot, almost like he was floating. On both occasions he got about halfway across the lot and then would vanish. We used to hear all kinds of stories of ghosts/strange occurences from some of the staff that had been there forever.
After I left there I went to work in a rehab unit that was located in what used to be an old Catholic Hospital. We were basically the only unit there other than a couple of outpt. clinics downstairs.
Would often hear crying, laughing footsteps etc in the stairwells, even on holidays when we were the only ones there. There was never anyone in those stairwells. Was often told it was an old nun who roamed the halls for many years before passing on our unit many years ago. I can't believe I've forgotten her name.

I am so easily scared, I would leave and never come back. Seriously. I am actually getting uneasy being in my apt. alone and reading this stuff. I really would have to quit my job if I saw anything like that or have someone go with me everywhere I went. My husband and I were watching The Shining the other night (I had never seen it) and I made him get up and go to the bathroom with me and I wouldn't let him go anywhere unless I followed him because I didn't want to be left alone. He was so aggravated, but I really scare easily.

I was working ICU and caring for a patient with breast Ca who was dying, minimally responsive for days (this was a long time ago when we actually kept dying patients in ICU). Anyway, she suddenly awoke and was very lucid, asking for some water.....I was a little stunned but got her water for her. After she drank she said, "Do you know what Jesus just asked me?" Of course I got a few chill bumps at this point, but answered, "No, what?" She said, "He asked me if I had done everything with love." "And what did you say, I replied. "I told him that I had tried," she said. I told her that most likely that is all any of us are capable of doing. I turned her with some pillows and she fell asleep and died about 10 minutes later. Needless to say, this affected me greatly, I want to be able to give the right answer when Jesus asks.

The second incident, we had an older man with a massive heart attack, lots of other problems and he ended up on the ventilator. He was the meanest old coot ever. His grandaughter worked at the hospital and apologized for his behavior and told us he had always been quite a rounder. He would bite, kick, spit, and had to be restrained to keep him from pulling every line he had out. We coded him three times during his stay. After the third time, his demeanor changed and he became much more cooperative. We explained the change as a bit of ICU psychosis that had resolved. The gentleman became a "frequent flyer" in our ICU, coming in multiple times with CHF and becoming a regular at our outpatient CHF clinic. He became a favorite, always smiling, joking, a dear man. One day he asked me, "Do you remember the first time I was here and how awful I was." I assured him that I did indeed remember. He said, "Do you know why I changed?" I replied that I didn't but just thought that his meaness was related to his illness. He said, "No, it wasn't that....the last time you guys brought me back when my heart stopped....I woke up and remembered being in this very dark place....it was awful......It was totally black and there was this awful smell of sulfur and the heat was terrible. I called out and called out and no one answered. I remembered hearing that when people die and then come back a lot of them see a light and a lot of other "good" stuff. I was scared....I didn't see a light and I knew then I had to change." He lived a couple more years after telling me his story and when he finally died in our ICU, I have a feeling that he saw the "light" and the "good things".......at least I hope so.

The very small step down unit I worked in was having night time staffing issues, I agreed to rotate to nights to help them out.
It was a 4 bed, newly renovated unit. It was around 3am, and I was watching the monitors, listening to the patients snore. The pencil draw slid open, I didnt think much of it since the hospital was on a very busy avenue. I thought it was caused by the vibrations from the trafffic on the busy road below. After sliding the draw back several times, I decided if the draw felt it needed to be open so be it
Several minutes later :
I heard a noise in the room, the patients bathroom door opening and the sound of someone pushing an IV pole. Since I did not have clear view of the bathroom, I just thought one of the staff members from the main floor had dashed in to wash their hands. I looked up from my monitor viewing to see a patient we recently had in the unit. Mrs.G. An older woman who came in with atypical chest pain, became septic due to a gallbladder issue.
She evidently had expired in the unit. Although the hospital itself had been on this site for years, the unit was newly renovated, right down to tearing down walls and putting up new ones. I heard the patients bathroom door open
and again I heard the rattling of the IV pole and shuffling feet. I looked up and saw Mrs. G. standing there in the middle of the floor, one hand pushing the IV pole, the other hand on top of the pump on the pole. She stopped walking, turned waved, nodded her head said everything was going to be okay
took a few steps and disappeared.
It was quite a site to see. Shortly after that "vision" one of the nurses from the floor came in to see if I needed anything. I told her no I was ok. And asked her if she had ever seen a ghost in the hospital. She looked at me, gasped and said no why. Explained to her what had just happend. She said she would never step foot in that room again.
Mrs. G was the first patient to die in that unit. She was well liked by all the staff and my feeling was that she was watching over us. The day shift came in, and I told them my story. They werent surprised.

Through the years working at various hospitals, worked as a Nurse Extern my senior year in nursing school.And heard older nurses telling their stories about ghosts...I thought they were just burnt out. HA!! Yes there are ghosts in care facilities,
If they are not seen their presence is felt. They leave an energy behind.

This thread is soooo creepy!!! Even more creepy, I had my first "ghost" experience right before I saw this thread! Bare with me, it's sort of a 3 part tale...
I was working my regular 7-7 night shift in a bone marrow transplant unit
with one other nurse. We had 5 patients, and it was about 3:30 am. My coworker had just come out of room 4, and i startled her as she came around the corner. Well, she had been empyting a urinal when the bathroom door had closed on her, which of course freaked her out and she spilled urine on herself but I digress. She proceeded to tell me that there was a young gentleman who had been in that room who had died a rather gruesome death...evidently this man was slated to go home, but one night (around 4) the nurses heard a thump...the sound of someone falling...they rushed in the room, and this man was in the bathroom, central line out, and blood everywhere. They coded him, but he died right there in the bathroom. No one is sure why he pulled his line, or what had happened, but evidently the scene was a bloodbath. Horrible, horrible...now here comes the scary part. A few weeks later, a sweet little old lady is in that room and asks the nurse if someone had died in there. The nurse explained that this is a hospital, and it was likely that someone could have died. Well, the lady says, well, i think a young guy died in here....the nurses asks why, the lady responds "cuz he's talking to me." Aghhh!! Ok, I'm not making this up....this lady has a central line, triple lumen. The nurse goes in there and there is blood everywhere. One of her lines is cut. Not pulled out, but cut. There are no scissors in the room. The lady says "he did it." OHMYGOSH!! Even the doctors were trying to get a priest or something to come in and say some prayers in that room!!!
Ok, so my coworker is telling me all this and we are scaring eachother when all of a sudden the call light goes off. For that room. We look at eachother, and both of us go to the room (we are not going in there alone!) The pt. is sleeping soundly. It was soooooooooooo freaky. Luckily, her central line was fine

Hi! I am a South African Nurse who is currently living and working in California. The weirdest thing happened to me one night when I was working Night Shift back in SA. I had a patient whom I thought was playing with his IV causing me no end of headaches - As we have all experienced. I eventually confronted him after having to open the clamp for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. He got really irate with me and said he had done no such thing but blamed it on a young nurse in a white dress whom he said had fiddled repeatedly with it . I was confused as while we wear specific uniforms in South Africa, they were not white at this specific hospital. Needless to say I was really irritated and I think we both ended the conversation feeling exasperated.

I didn't think about the young nurse for several weeks until one night in a totally different room with a totally different patient. The call light rang and when I went to answer it the patient said he had a problem with one of my staff. Curious, asked what. He said a young nurse in a white uniform was standing quietly in the doorway of the dark bathroom staring at him and it was freaking him out. At this my hair stood on end but I reassured him that he must have been dreaming and checked the bathroom just to be sure. There was nothing there but I will never forget it.

Another instance, there was a patient who was terminally ill with liver cancer in a private room. I was working days but the night shift people said they hated going into the room because something would blow on the back of their necks and shadows would move where shadows shouldn't be. The man was a christian, as was his wife and his wife said she saw this black prescence descend above him and his breathing would become labored. She asked myself and a friend to pray for her which we gladly did being christians ourselves. We annointed and blessed the room and prayed with the family and asked the Lord to seal the room. From that time on the room was filled with peace and love and the man breathed so much more easier. People had no more problems with going in there. This gentle little man eventually passed away, but it was in a place of peace and love.

I think I have a few more stories but I can't remember them right now as I have just gotten home from a crazy night in a wild med/surg unit and I am truly beat!

Take care

gms1976

:Melody: SOUNDS LIKE NURSE BETTY HAS TRUELY BECOME AN ANGEL...WOW A NICE NURSE WHO WANTED TO DO MORE AND HER TIME WAS SHORTENED....BELIEVE IN GHOST DONT KNOW BELIEVE IN ANGELS POSITIVE...NURSE BETTY HAS PROVEN THAT ONE AGAIN TO ME...BLESSINGS TO ALL ....[quote=Mulan]

Worked as a Hospice nurse for 10 years and was with many as they died. I have come to regard death as a sacred experience. We always tried to ensure that the symptoms were controlled so that the patient was comfortable and calm. When someone is not at peace as they die then it can be very scarey for the nurse and family. I belive that there is an afterlife and that evil exits but I have never seen a ghost or been freaked out. I have however, seen others who watch too many scarey movies and don't understand the sacred nature of the next stage of life whose door is death. I am not afraid to die myself, I just hope that whoever is there to take care of me as make my journey can be compassionate and comforting. I already have my hopice nurse picked out.