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 Critical Care.

A couple, retired military captain and his wife, Margaret, sold their house to move to Florida. It so happens that they sold their house to the State - the state was going to use it as a resident home for mentally disabled teens.

After the closing, but before they moved, Margaret died in the house. The Captain had to move cause the house was already sold.

Do you know where I'm going with this??

Residents always referred to 'old lady' that they always saw. Nursing staff just referred to her as 'Maggie'.

Now, late at night, when the residents were asleep, if the staff put the TV on more adult programming, like 'Red Shoe Diaries', etc., the TV would turn off, and when turned back on, would come on on a different channel.

There was this one nurse, it was like the house was out to get her. She'd swear that 'the carpet tripped me'. When cupboards opened, knives would fall out aimed at her. Turns out this nurse was eventually fired for abusing and stealing from the residents.

Maggie takes care of her 'children'.

This was represented to me as a true and ongoing story.

~faith,

Timothy.

Specializes in LTC, med-surg, critial care.

I haven't even taken boards yet and I already have a story!

I work as a CNA in long term care. We had one resident "Betty" who was totally independant, all ADL's were done on her own and she did fine on her own, never had an incident. The only time she wanted help was showers and then she only wanted you around to make sure she didn't slip and fall. Betty came down with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. When she came back she was too weak to do things on her own but too stubborn to ask for help. The last thing the CNA told her before going to bed was "If you want to get up, hit your call light. I'll come help you." Of course she didn't, got rid of the bed alarm, climed out of bed and fell. Betty died from the fall. No one has been moved into her bed.

The following week the call light for the room went off at night. Thinking it was the resident in bed B I walked down the room to see what she wanted. I walked into the room only to see the call light for bed B and A off, the call light for bed C (Betty's unoccupied bed) was on. My eyes filled up with tears, I backed out of the room and made someone else turn the call light off. :p

It happened a week later. I want to see if it happens this week too.

An agency nurse asked us if we would not laugh at her if she told us something weird and everyone told her that they wouldn't. She said that she walked out of a room from starting an IV line and saw a black figure going down the hallway, that same morning in six hours three residents died, coincidence?

Here's a few stories...

A friend of mine who is also a nurse used to work in hospice. She told me about a patient that she cared for that was a very mean individual who was hateful to her family as well as the nurses who cared for her. As this woman was dying, she became very afraid and started yelling that she was burning! She screamed & wailed about burning right up until she died.

I used to work in an old hospital built in the 1930's. I worked on a med-surg unit. In room 7, the beds used to raise up & down by themselves. We called maintenance, who checked the beds out & said they were fine. While the beds were in the hall, they didn't move. Once they went back into room 7, they started moving again.

Our old facility has closed down and we have since moved into a new hospital. There is some rumor that the land was once a cemetary. The night before we moved into the new hospital, the fire alarms went off & it was discovered that the burners were turned on in the kitchen. No one had been in the kitchen that day. The first week of staying at the hospital, one patient said her window kept swinging open. The handle to open the window is difficult to turn & the patient was unable to get out of bed. There is a pet Cemetary nearby. Several patients have reported seeing cats & dogs in their rooms. Even my grandfather stayed there for a week & kept saying there was a big yellow cat in the corner.

I just heard about the ghost nun who is still trying to pass meds. One of the docs told us the other morning that one night 2 separate patients saw the same woman in a long gray dress and veil w/ one of those med trays walk into their rooms. Guess she didn't end up giving any meds, but they thought she was a staff member passing out pills. Our hospital has several haunts, particularly in the OR.

Specializes in Case Management.

This one is pretty creepy and it is one of the reasons I got out of the hospital and started working office case management. I worked many years on tele and I worked steady nights. I was constantly overtired, never felt quite rested. While waiting for my husband to get home (he worked steady 2nd shift, I worked steady nights) I was dozing on the couch, the kids were in bed. I was half in and out of consciousness when I felt a presence. Even though my eyes were closed tight, I "felt" the room turn red beyond my eyelilds. I started to hear the whispers of athousand souls in the room. The air was oppressive, and I tried to scream, though no sound came out. The whispers got louder and louder, though I could not tell what the souls were trying to say. When my husbands key turned in the door, the redness in the room vanished, the whispers instantly stopped, and I became wide awake, as though never asleep. I told my husband I felt it would be a bad night. Sure enough, in the room across the hall from the nurses station (you know the one, that is reserved for the sickest or the most unstable, so to be close when code is called) my coworkers patient strangled herself silently in her waist restraint. Her body was contorted, limbs contorted in unnatural ways, with her face smashed between the bedrail and the mattress. My coworker was distraught, having checked on her only 20 minutes prior. We called a code, and worked on her a back breaking 30 minutes, I did compressions, and I still remember the sound of a couple fo ribs cracking. In the end she was gone, and my coworker was beside herself. The next night the same scenario, I waited for my husband to come home, I drifted in and out of consciousness, the room turned red beyond my eyelids. and a thousand souls whispered tortured sounds into my ears, but I was unable to discern what they were saying. I opened my mouth to scream, nothing came out, I woke to the sound of the key in the door...That night I had agreed to switch sides with my coworker, having felt pity for her. The room across the hall was cleaned and in it was a new patient, a man in his 50's with moving chest pain...I was tired from the night before, my back still sore from the 30 minutes of doing compressions. I worked swiftly as I could getting in first rounds, checking frequently on my new friend across the hall with the moving chest pain. I was newly trained in telemetry, and felt concerned about the pain that moved across his chest, and down the left arm, then back up and down the right arm. Although I was new, I felt that I noted a subtle S-T depression on his rhythm strip. But a more seasoned tele nurse looked at the strip, and said it was nothing. I called the cardiologist, and though I didn't want to seem overly zealous, I told him about the moving chest pain, and what I felt to be a subtle change in the S-T segment. He ordered my patient maalox and tylenol, which I gave, then I was sidetracked by a patient whose rate suddenly went into the 150's. I got busy with his orders, and for a moment, forgot about my patient with the moving chest pain. Suddenly the unit clerk shouted at me in the still of the night down the hall, "Patti, go see your patient in 15, he is in V Tach!, as I raced to his room, she said, "NO! now he is in V fib!" I yelled over my shoulder, call a code! As I ran into his room, the hues changed from a soft yellow, to a definite red. I looked at my patient, as he sat up, and laid down, up and down up and down again and again, making these agonal sounds. He could not sit still. In the midst of this the code team came in. They all watched as this man sat up and laid down again and again. In awe, we watched as this man breathed his last earthly breath. As he laid down for the last time, they sprang into action, but too late. He died of a massive heart attack. A week later I was applying to every insurance company in town. I got my steady daylight weekends and holidays off. I make sure I get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I vow never to work nights again.

I was walking past the nurses station on one of our units just before breakfast time and saw this big black figure that was behind a chair raise up from about three feet tall to seven feet almost touching the ceiling and it was coming my way over the counter. I moved my butt on out there quickly, come to find out when I shared this story with the folks who had worked 11-7 the day before and one of them had seen a big black figure go by and they both heard it make some kind of mournful moan as it went down the ramp to the other unit. I nearly fell over when I found out I wasn't the only one seeing it that day. We both described exactly the same thing with even the same gait.

I used to work in an old catholic hospital. Where the labor and delivery unit is located now, it used to be the convent for the nuns that worked at this hospital. One of the nuns died of natural causes years ago. This nun loved and raised numerous varieties of roses. Ever since the OB department was moved to this area, anytime a mother or baby is having difficulties you can smell the scent of roses throughout the whole unit. The OB nurses know to be prepared when they start smelling the scent of roses. If a mother or baby dies, the room suddenly fills with rose petals. It is one of the creepiest, but also loving things that happens. I was standing in a room one night when the baby died. The room filled with white and pink rose petals. The nurses and family was creeped out.

I worked at another hospital where you would see a nurse in the old white dress and cap walk down the hallway and smile at you. Then she would walk into a patient's room and apply wrist restraints. All the nurses knew her. It was just Mildred who died 60 years ago. You just had to follow her so you can take the wrist restraints off.

I do have other stories that are a lot creepier than these.

Chad_KY_SRNA said:
The best I have heard is from a nurse who said that one night she was floated to oncology at the hospital she used to work at. She was given a patient who was passing away and had been unconscious for several days. At one point during the night the nurse went into the room and the patient was at the top of the bed and looked at her and said, "don't let them take me!", the nurse was freaked out and asked her who was going to take her and she said that black thing up there and pointed up in the air. This patient died within minutes.

Come on now share your stories, I know you have seen and heard freaky things.

A nurse who is a friend of mine told me a bout a patient she had that had been sick for a while and she had went in the patients room to get her vital signs and the pt was lifted off the bed just a few inches and she said that there was a black shadow that covered the room and as the pt died it was llike the shadow left the room and a very cold even spookey draft followed she says and I believe that u can tell a pt has either went to heaven or the devil him self has come to claim his soul. Nursing gives u a total different look on death and the higher power

ZASHAGALKA said:
OK, I know what dh is by context, but what does it actually stand for? I know that's a newbie question and I've been here a little bit, but all I can think of is 'designated hitter'.

~faith,

Timothy.

Sorry, dh ="dear husband"

Chad_KY_SRNA said:
I can handle just about everything except the patient that coded while floating 2 inches over the bed. For that I would go get the charge nurse and walk out.

I was the charge nurse. I was suppose to be putting on a brave front for the less experienced nurses. I am still freaked out from that night. I quit working at that hospital not long after. Before I left I started to notice come changes throughout the unit. There was strange sounds. People's personalities were changing. I watched some of the quietest, shy nurses become very sexual or verbally abusive. We had one nurse who was a very devoted Christian woman. I had never heard a bad word about anyone or her even curse. She always smiled and was very polite. After that night, she would let out string of curse words and obscenties that I have never heard before. She had that same evil look in her eye as that patient did that night. That hospital needed a priest.

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.

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