Ghostly experiences??

Nurses General Nursing

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I was just wondering if anyone out there has had any "ghostly" experiences as a nurse? I have had several unexplainable things happen during my career but two really come to mind..

I took care of a beautiful little old lady when I was a fairly new nurse in a nursing home. This lady used to sit next to me at the nurses station nearly all night long when I worked nights. I would give her a pile of washcloths to fold which she would do then I would mess them up and she would do it again..we would "chat" and have a cup of tea...she was a darling. She always used to reach over and touch my hair and say "your hair is so pretty". I was charge the night she was dying and I spent quite a lot of time in her room with her keeping her comfortable since her "family" could not "handle" being there.. As I was listening to her lungs she passed. I stood there and of course got all teary..I swear I felt a hand touch my hair and I heard a sort of a woosh by my left ear..

The other was not so pleasant..this woman (also at the nursing home) was a mean and nasty person and she did not have dementia. She would scratch and try to bite and spit her pills all over and swear..I came on shift at 11p and saw her at 1130..I was at the nurses station charting probably an hour later when the CNAs did 12 pm rounds and all of a sudden I hear a loud scream from her room. Myself and the other RN on ran to the room and the woman was dead but she was grasping the side rails and she had a look of utter terror on her face..I still have chills when I think of what she looked like..there was no warning of her death..If there is a grim repaer, she looked like she saw him. The other nurse and I have been best friends since working together there and we still talk about that night..

I was just wondering of anyone else has ever experienced anything like this while nursing...?? Erin

i have just spent the past two hours reading all posts on this thread. It has been along time since I read anything quite so interesting. I have been laughing and crying intermittedly. :imbar Thank you all for you generous sharing ...I guess if everyone was to sit down and think about it, we have all had experiences that we couldnt quite explain, or dreams that felt so real that just maybe we did have a beloved long lost visitor in them. I have no mindboggling stories from the wards to share with you. However my darling dad passed away in 1997 after suffering with COPD for an extended period. He was never a saint, but he was a brilliant dad who loved and provided for his wife and 4 kids to the best of his ability. My father did NOT believe in the afterlife at ALL. In fact he believed that after he left that was it...let the fat lady sing. One night during one of our conversations I asked him, that if by chance he was wrong, and there was some way, would he let me know he was ok after he died. He raised a sceptics brow and said yeah ok, but advised me not to attempt any breath holding feats of strength waiting. One night a week or so after my father passed away my partner took an overnight fishing trip and still greiving I fell asleep on the couch. I was woken quite suddenly feeling very cold and feeling a presence strongly in the room as well as smelling my fathers distinctive tobacco. My first instinct to want to hear from my dad fled in the face of reality and I silently begged my father not to show himself after all as I was terrified. The room was once again flooded with warmth and everything returned to normal. Then several weeks passed and as I lay sleeping one night in my bed I was woken suddenly feeling a gentle kiss being placed on my cheek. I opened my eyes in time to see a dark shadow on the wall lift as if someone bending over me had straightened up, then it dissappeared. I was left with a feeling of great peace, and I knew my father had "Let me know" in a way that I could cope with. :)

When I Was Just Out Of Nursing School I Worked On A Busy Med Surg Floor. (still Do) One Night We Heard A Phone Drop But When We Went Looking No One Had Dropped There Phone. We Let It Go But Then We Went Looking For Our I/o Book, Where We Chart All Our Intake And Output, It Was Gone. We Looked All Over Our Station But It Was Gone. As We Were Looking I Looked In One Of The Patients Room And Saw A Figure Sitting In A Chair At The End Of The Patient's Bed. The Patient Had Been Talking About His Brother That Night. I Believe His Brother Had Come To See Him Because The Patient Died A Few Nights Later. Our I/o Book Returned After The Figure Had Left The Room. Freaky!!

I have for ya'll.

One night in our MICU, it had been super busy. It was about 2am and we were all silent and diligently charting away. I was sitting next to a post with the fire extinguisher on it to the right of me, with a short hallway behind me. There was a friend of mine to my left, the post to my right and another friend in front of me to the right behind the post. I heard someone call my name, whisper like, to my right ear. I felt my hair move....when they whispered, they were so close to me, that my hair moved. My name is Christine and it was very distinct. I threw my pen down, pissed and said...you guys quit screwing with me, I have to finish charting!...They both looked at me and said what the hell are you talking about? ...I was like, oh right, like one of ya'll is jerking with me, whispering my name in my right ear. My friend, to my left, said I haven't moved..i have sat here the whole time!!...I believed her, because I would have seen her move.There was no one behind me in the hall. So, I turned to my friend on the right and wheeled my chair around the pole. I said to her, quit screwing with me and let me chart....She said again...I swear I haven't moved...I then realized that no one had moved and got the biggest goose bumps and burst into tears at the nurses station....Then, they all got freaked out because they thought I was jerking around with them and realized I wasn't!! But i heard someone say my name just as normal as anything...Freaked the crap out of me!!!!

Chris

Just kinda freaky...

When my son was about 3 years old, my dad, brother and husband had talked planned to go parachuting for my dad's 50th birthday. They didn't tell anyone else in the family about their plans. A few days before their schedule take off, my 3 year old told grandpa that Jesus told him in a dream that grandpa, uncle steve and daddy shouldn't jump out of the airplane because it would be bad. Needless to say, they stayed home and we all went out to dinner instead.

This EXACT same thing happened to me when I was 3 years old . We were all in PA for Easter and my Aunt Betty was scheduled to fly back to Ohio that evening but the weather was bad so she had decided to drive back with some cousins. According to my mother I woke up that from my nap and RAN downstairs in a complete tizzy screaming and crying at my Aunt to NOT drive back to Ohio. She says that they could not console me whatsoever and it freaked my Aunt out bad enough that she decided to wait until the weather cleared for the next plane. After midnight the phone rang and it was some other family member letting them all know that the cousins had been in an accident and there were no survivors. To this day my Aunt calls me " Judge".

Another weird thing happened when I was 21. I had a dream that I was walking through the woods and came across a train wreck that was on fire and people were screaming for my help. In the distance I could see a hospital. I woke up the next day and went about my business and eventually turned on the TV and heard that there had been a metro train derailment in the town I grew up in....and as they were showing the footage there was the hospital in the distance. I remember I was eating cereal at the time and my spoon just froze 1/2 way to my mouth...until dripping milk eventually snapped me out of it...

And lastly.....my Grandfather passed away at home back from natural causes at 95. He had always enjoyed a glass of wine and a nice cigar for special occasions. He used to smoke them in the basement because my Grandmother didn't like the smell. The basement was really just storage...not lived in Well holidays were HUGE to him and the first holiday after his passing was Thanksgiving. My Aunt went down to the basement to fetch some canned goods and all of a sudden we hear her scream " OH MY GOD! We all ran to the basement door where she was standing asking her what was wrong and she said open the door. We did and the STRONGEST odor of his cigar smell came wafting out. It was POTENT like someone was standing there smoking one. Then she just said " Dad is here for the holidays ~ guess he needed his holiday cigar"

I am not yet a nurse but I had to reply to this one to be called to it. I was working as a receptionist trying to figure out what to do with my life and a temp was working there and she was about to go to nursing school. I thought to myself that would be interesting but I was tied to the job. A few days later I was told they were downsizing and since I was last to be hired I was let go. I decided this was an opportunity for me to work at a hospital and get over some of my fears. I soon got a job admitting patient's into the er. While I was there I was eating in the cafeteria reading the book Converstations with God when a woman came and asked if she could sit next to me. She asked what I was reading and I told her and she said we should pray together. I am not a religious person usually but I thought it would be rude to turn her down. When we were praying I got this tingly feeling all over and it sort of scared me. Later that night I got home and floating in the dog bowl dish was this:Have no fear for what tomorrow may bring. The same loving god who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. God will either sheild you from suffering or give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations. Mind you this was in a dog bowl in a yard with chows and 10 ft tall fences. Then the next day I was in the rest room and on a sticky in the stall was this: turn ye unto me, saith the lord, and I will turn unto you. It was at that point that I decided that god or something was trying to tell me that I was on the right path and if I hadn't made the decision to work in a hospital I may have never come across these things. I am finally (with the help of my wonderful parents) able to go to school full time and persue this.

Specializes in med-surg, home health, hospice, LTC.

These are great posts, I just read through the whole bunch, and have a couple of them to add myself.

My family seems to get into weird subjects when we're together at holidays etc. My mother, before she died, told us about a figure in black that would appear at night, in their bedroom, in the corner of the room. She said that she would feel like she was paralyzed, and scared to death of the figure, but that by working to reach over and just touch my Dad, the figure would disappear. I was spooked enough by what she said, but then my brother (who was in Vietnam) AND my sister said they had seen the same figure. My brother also talked about needing to touch his wife, and feeling paralyzed. My sister in law said she didn't really believe my brother about it until one night she woke up while "it" was there and it scared the heck out of her too! Hope it never decides to pay me a visit!

The only ghost story I have personally is kinda dumb, but it sure freaked me out for a few days afterward. I am always the first one up at our house during the week, one day I got up, put some coffee on, then went to take a shower. When I got out and went to get some coffee, I heard my washing machine running in the utility room. My daughter was home from college and I figured she had gotten up early to put some clothes in. I remember looking in the washer and being a little irritated cuz it looked like it was a very small load, I couldn't see any clothes, but figured it was a white shirt or something. A little later I thought I would be nice and put the clothes in the dryer for her. When I opened the washer lid, it was empty, so I looked in the dryer in case she had already put them in and it was empty too. Now I'm sure you're all aware that on a washing machne you have to push the knob in, turn it to a cycle and then pull it out again to make it start, so it didn't just start by itself. Plus I almost always leave the lid up. Also, I realized that when I first heard it agitating, and went to check on it, it was in the middle of the cycle, it would have had to have been started while I was in the shower, so I didn't do it myself (you know how early mornings can be) and forget. Also my daughter denied having washed anything in it. Now I have some cast iron figures of women doing housework, vacuuming etc, that were my mother's, hanging on the wall next to the washer, so I think it was my mother, but it was a strange way of trying to contact me, and I wish I knew what she was trying to tell me. :confused:

My neices say that my Mom visited one of them in a dream and kept telling her to GET UP! When my neice did, she discovered a candle they had left burning had started a fire in their apt, and could have been bad, as they are both heavy sleepers.

I guess I am lucky that she's looking out for us, but I envy my sister who tells me she feels Mom's presence a lot. I really don't even though I was the one into the supernatural as a kid. :o

Specializes in Medical Oncology, Med-Surg, L & D.

Your stories made me cry :scrying: , some made me ask my husband to accompany me in the restroom :chuckle . I, myself had some personal experiences similar to yours. I am someone who always feel and see paranormal stuff since I was a kid. Some are pleasant experience, some are not.

This one, I wouldn't consider a dream or a ghost story. I just couldn't explain it in words. When I was sleeping, I was dreaming that I was running fast with some other women that I never met before. Then I saw stairs.. I went up there and I was running out of breath. It was a little dark. At the top of the stairs, there was a water fountain. At the top of the water fountain was Mama Mary with her baby Jesus (Madonna) . As I was looking at her (running out of breath so badly) she told me "NEVER LEAVE YOUR SON" and it echoes to my mind again and again. Then I heard my son (who was 4 months old at that time) crying and started kicking. I woke up as if I was brought back to life. I started crying, then I prayed and thanked Mother Mary for bringing me back to life.

Ghost story...In my daily life, it is normal for me to see shadows and just feel that I am not alone. Sometimes, the TV would just turn on by itself. Sometimes I would feel very cold and was shivering while my boys are sweating or complaining that it's hot. Several times in my whole life, I would always feel the bed move as if somebody sits there or something. I don't usually get scared. My grandparents told me that If I see or feel something unusual, just talk to them. If I get scared, I ask them to leave me alone or don't do such a thing. I even sometimes talk to them as if they're my friends, I greet them. I know they are just there to visit or maybe not :uhoh21: Honestly, it's creepy. I was told by a priest friend that when I feel a bad spirit (you'll know) just say "Go away in Jesus Name." Again and again.... It works all the time, accompanied by prayers.

I have noticed that some of you guys sees your late lovedones in your dreams. I think this is the best way for spirits to communicate with us, when we are in our subconscious. When I was pregnant with my son, I had times when I terribly miss my grandma and grandpa who passed away a year before I gave birth. I usually see them in my dreams and they always show me that they take good care of me. I remember when they asked me to eat. They were giving me food and they asked me to rest a lot. That was the time when I was really sick during my first trimester. When our dying loved ones say "they'll be watching over us" I believe them they will. I still talk to them in my prayers.

Until reading all your posts I thought what I'd witnessed with my own Mom was an unusual situation.

Mom was in an ICU in the last stages of emphysema 2 years ago, our Dad had passed on a year before from kidney failure. She had been on a ventilator for a week and was thrilled when they took her off and was able to talk again. My brothers and sisters were in the waiting room - I got a chance to be alone with her and talk for a short time. She suddenly looked towards the other side of the room near the closet and said "oh I didn't see you - what are you doing over there"?. I said - Mom, I'm over here - who are you talking to? She said - your Father - he's standing over there, why doesn't he sit down?

She gave me the strangest look and said - Susan that couldn't have been your Dad, he's gone, but I swear he was standing there beside my bed. That Man was the most Fantastic Husband, Father and Grandfather you can imagine - he was always there for all of us when we needed him. I told Mom I had no doubt that Dad knew she needed him, so of course it was him that she saw standing by her bed watching over her. She was just shaking her head trying to figure out what had just happened.

When I told my very no-nonsense siblings what had happened they chalked it up to Mom's lack of oxygen and me being overly-emotional - Dad was gone and buried and that was that. Sadly, My Darling Mom passed away a few weeks later but I know in my Heart that Dad was there in that room and had come to be with her when she passed on.

It's incredibly painful losing both of your folks - but when they go so close together and you aren't finished grieving the loss of one when the other passes on is really traumatic. They both knew my life-long dream was to be a Nurse and I know "wherever they are" they'll be cheering me on through school. I know that dealing with their losses will help me be very patient and understanding with family members of dying patients who are going through the same things that I've dealt with in my own life. Peace - SusanNC

Thank you for sharing your story. You made me cry. I'm sure your wonderful parents are with you , and will be cheering you through school.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

years ago, when i was in my first icu job, the code team was called to the outpatient clinic. a psychiatry resident had been shot by a patient who then turned the gun on himself. despite 15 hours of surgery, they weren't able to save the resident, and she died in the or. the patient survived.

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[color=#4b0082]a couple of years later, our unit was bursting at the seams -- we had more patients than beds. everyone was working tons of overtime, and we had opened an un-used section of the pre-op holding area to use as an ancillary icu. the sickest patients went from the or to the pre-op holding area. i loved working up there because there was easier access to the surgeons, less oversight from management, the most interesting patients, and i got charge pay for taking charge "upstairs." one day i was working upstairs with three patients and a relatively new icu nurse. i had the sickest patient, the other nurse had the other two. i had a few extra minutes, and i was sitting at the desk with the phone list, trying to call in more staff for the night shift. a resident i had never seen before slipped up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. it startled the heck out of me, and i must have jumped a foot in the air. "i'm sorry i scared you," the resident said. "but that patient over there (points to one of the patients the newer nurse was caring for) is bleeding out, and i don't think your colleague gets it."

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[color=#4b0082]i jumped up and hurried over to assess the patient in question and although the signs were vague, they were there. i had thought to use the moment as a teaching moment, but things deteriorated rapidly and we were damned busy trying to get that patient stabilized and ultimately sending him back to surgery. the strange resident was there the whole time, standing at the desk keeping out of the way. after it was all over and the dust cleared, one of the surgery fellows remarked "what was linda doing here? i thought she was a psych resident!" the strange resident was somehow gone.

[color=#4b0082]"you mean the resident who was at the desk?" he nodded. "she's the one that alerted me to the problem," i said.

[color=#4b0082]"that's impossible," one of the residents said. "linda died."

[color=#4b0082]they found an old picture of linda, the pysch resident who was shot by a patient, and indeed, it was the strange resident who had gotten my attention! all three of us -- the fellow, the resident and me -- were certain. strangely, the other nurse never saw her -- not even during the code when linda was keeping watch from the desk. the one awake patient didn't see her, either.

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[color=#4b0082]since then, i've heard other folks say that occaisionally there's some "extra help" in par and pre-op holding. linda never seemed to venture into the or itself, though.

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Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
years ago, when i was in my first icu job, the code team was called to the outpatient clinic. a psychiatry resident had been shot by a patient who then turned the gun on himself. despite 15 hours of surgery, they weren't able to save the resident, and she died in the or. the patient survived.

[color=#4b0082]a couple of years later, our unit was bursting at the seams -- we had more patients than beds. everyone was working tons of overtime, and we had opened an un-used section of the pre-op holding area to use as an ancillary icu. the sickest patients went from the or to the pre-op holding area. i loved working up there because there was easier access to the surgeons, less oversight from management, the most interesting patients, and i got charge pay for taking charge "upstairs." one day i was working upstairs with three patients and a relatively new icu nurse. i had the sickest patient, the other nurse had the other two. i had a few extra minutes, and i was sitting at the desk with the phone list, trying to call in more staff for the night shift. a resident i had never seen before slipped up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. it startled the heck out of me, and i must have jumped a foot in the air. "i'm sorry i scared you," the resident said. "but that patient over there (points to one of the patients the newer nurse was caring for) is bleeding out, and i don't think your colleague gets it."

[color=#4b0082]i jumped up and hurried over to assess the patient in question and although the signs were vague, they were there. i had thought to use the moment as a teaching moment, but things deteriorated rapidly and we were damned busy trying to get that patient stabilized and ultimately sending him back to surgery. the strange resident was there the whole time, standing at the desk keeping out of the way. after it was all over and the dust cleared, one of the surgery fellows remarked "what was linda doing here? i thought she was a psych resident!" the strange resident was somehow gone.

[color=#4b0082]"you mean the resident who was at the desk?" he nodded. "she's the one that alerted me to the problem," i said.

[color=#4b0082]"that's impossible," one of the residents said. "linda died."

[color=#4b0082]they found an old picture of linda, the pysch resident who was shot by a patient, and indeed, it was the strange resident who had gotten my attention! all three of us -- the fellow, the resident and me -- were certain. strangely, the other nurse never saw her -- not even during the code when linda was keeping watch from the desk. the one awake patient didn't see her, either.

[color=#4b0082]since then, i've heard other folks say that occaisionally there's some "extra help" in par and pre-op holding. linda never seemed to venture into the or itself, though.

:yelclap: hooray for linda!!!! they may have managed to destroy her body, but they didn't destroy her spirit. she continues to do what she loves to do best. saving lives. cudos to you. what an awesome experience. i've had a few of them myself.
In 2001 my dad had a cardiac arrest while in the doctor's office. He was revived and transferred to the small hospital across the street. He coded again, was revived and flown by helicopter to a larger hospital 50 miles away. He was in CCU for a week and got a pacemaker. I lived hundreds of miles away and when I called MD prior to leaving my house after hearing about his intial code, the MD told me that my dad was sitting in his office laughing and talking and "I was running around trying to get a temp pacemaker cause his heart rate was 30! Then he coded on me!"

About 6 months later, I told my dad that he was lucky that he had a doctor's apointment that day or he would have died. He replied that he didn't have a doctor's appointment that day and was not going to the doctor's office but to the grocery store. However, 3 "guys" got into his pickup truck and "made him" drive to the doctor's office. He said he really couldn't make out their faces!

Wow! Do you think they were angles or ghost or what.

I will say this at the begining I am NOT a nurse. This happened to a friend of mine (last year when she was a senior in highschool) but this little nine year old (my friends sister) had cancer. She was in the hospital and had been for a while. One day when she was talking to her mother she said, "Mom, I want to go home." her mother responded, "We will sweety." The little girl then said, "No, I want to go home with Jesus. But how will I know what car he is driving." When I heard this I cried.

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