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
It sure does!! I think we are capable of much more than we know and there are obviously things out there around us we have no inkling of ( based on this thread!!). I like hearing about others experiences..pretty cool and scarey (with some)..Erin
It sure does!! I think we are capable of much more than we know and there are obviously things out there around us we have no inkling of ( based on this thread!!). I like hearing about others experiences..pretty cool and scarey (with some)..Erin
I had an encounter right after I had graduated from high school. A guy I went to school with was killed in a train/car accident. I had called my best friend early that morning after my vision and said the weirdest thing just happened. I proceeded to tell her what I had seen detail by detail up to the exact color and kind of car he was driving. It wasn't 10 minutes after I had talked to her she called back and told me Rick had died in a car/train accident and everything I had described actually happened.
Specializes in Case Mgmt; Mat/Child, Critical Care.
This is a great thread! Many of these stories have given me goosebumps and a few have brought tears to my eyes.
I myself have had a lot of "abnormal"/supernatural experiences...here's a couple, though personal...not work related.
When I was 11 yrs old my grandmother died, she was very, very close to us, she was more like a mom to me....so it happenned that my mom and dad had to drive to her hometown (a small town in Texas) to settle some affairs for her. The whole family ended up going. This was in March and we were driving home...my father was in the Air Force and was due back at the base, so he decided to drive straight throught the night. My mom was really worried because there was a really bad storm, blizzard-like. She did not want us driving throught the mountains in that storm. My dad was a no nonsense kinda guy and just kept going.
Well, it was about 3 am, and I had fallen asleep in the back of the car,but awoke sensing we were no longer moving....apparently my mom had just woken up also, because I heard her asking my dad what was wrong. My dad was so freaked out, I had never seen/heard him like that before...he was very upset, telling my mom that as he was driving he saw someone standing in the middle of the road, mind you, it's snowing, poor visibility, hardly any other cars,... he thought somebody's car broke down, so he slowed down to talk to the person and rolled down his window, and when the person leaned down into the widow, he said it was my grandmother! She started telling my dad that she was sorry that she had died (very unexpectedly), that she loved all of us, and to make sure we all knew how much she loved us....then she started telling him that he had better get his affairs in order,...bills, insurance, house, etc....because he didn't have that much time left! Then he said she just faded away.
He was so shook up, we found a diner off the highway and spent the next couple of hours there while my dad regained his composure! The really weird thing is....my father died 1-1/2 yrs later in a car accident!!!
Another weird thing happenned about 10 yrs ago, I was in the process of moving out of state and my son, who was about 9 at the time, wanted to go in the U-Haul w/the guy I had hired to drive it. I knew the guy...family friend, so that wasn't a problem and initially I said OK. The night before we were leaving I kept having this feeling that I should not let my son go in the U_Haul...at first I just brushed it off, but the feeling was getting stronger and stronger. That night, even after I went to bed, I could not sleep, I was having bad dreams, restless, uneasy and this overwhelming feeling of doom, about driving the next day.
The next morning I told my son he could not go in the u-haul...he was very upset (it was a big adventure to him)...but I absolutely would not let him go.
Well, we got separated from the truck on the drive, but we were to meet up in Phoenix, but our truck never showed up...we waited for hours and hours...we had lost touch in the Flagstaff area, so there was no accounting for what happenned...we had calls in to the state police, hospitals, everything, to no avail. About 1 or 2 am I got word that the driver of our U-haul had gotten in an accident in Flaggstaff, essentially, the U-Haul rolled off the top of the mountain and landed only yards from the interstate...the driver was unconcious in the hospital in Flaggstaff!
OMG! I was so freaked out...God only knows what would have happenned if my son were in that truck!!! I ALWAYS trust my instinct/6th sense...whatever you want to call it!
This is a great threard. I have been enjoying all the stories work related and personal. I believe in this type of thing. I have had way to many experiences with this area not to believe.
I have had episodes of people being in the room with me and I was the only one, prayers being answered during the prayer, knowing someone was going to die 3 months ahead of time , and even visits from very loved pets that have died.
The pets have visited in very ultra real dreams and while I was a wake and doing something unrelated to the animal.
Something very strange just happened to me. During the latter part of my Dad's illness up to his death he had a very distinct smell. Well, I was sitting here studying very intently and suddenly I smelled him. It was strong enough to capture my attention and cause me to look up from my book. After a few seconds, it was completely gone. I don't know what to make of it. I will add, however, that this is the room that he passed away in 6 years ago.
When I was small, my father would stay up late in his attic study and my mom would take me into her bed because she didn't like to sleep alone. Anyways, I remember lying there and hearing...every night, the sound of men's footsteps on the stairs. I always thought they belonged to my dad and thought it was wierd that they always stopped at the top of the stairs. And wondered how my dad got from the attic to the bottom of the stairs to walk up them, and not appear at the landing. I found out it was a ghost and he would walk up 12 stairs and stop. My mother saw it once as it glided out of my room after waking me up and scaring me causing me to scream bloody murder! My mom swears there was also a ghost of a small child that would knock things over and spill things.
When my parents decided to sell the house , my dad renovated it and knocked out a wall. No more ghosts. But they found a small infant's dress buried up in the attic. My dad went to the former owner's and asked about it but they were very nervous about the subject and steered clear of a direct answer. hmmmmm.
My fiancee works as a security guard at he hospital and there is one part of the hospital that is now an outpatient clinic, but used to be the old hospital. Strange stuff happens there. No one wants to go in alone!
this happened over 35 years ago--but i still remember it. we had a young man dying of a blood dyscragia and had been extremely lethargic for days--almost comatose---all of a sudden in the middle of the night , he "woke" up and was trying to climb out of bed yelling "i have to meet St. Peter--i have to meet St.Peter" and HE DID !!!!!!! I'll never forget him
The nurses in my unit believe that Bed #10 is haunted - we just dont know by whom. Its the nicest room in the unit & we all used to have a pact that if any of us were admitted to our ICU, we'd be put in bed #10 ---- but no more. The most codes in our unit happen in that bed, the monitor does weird things like remove the pt admission data itself, the window shades go up by themselves. And tonight we watched the IV pump keep changing its rate by itself. We once had a pt in there who demanded she be changed to another room but wouldnt ever tell us why. We moved her but never found out what made her so nervous there. Id love to know.
I never saw a ghost in my 21 years working in hospitals but last summer, as I was pulling up to my mother's to pick up my kids around 10 pm, I saw my dog lying on the top step of the front stoop in his usual pose. I even saw his chain stretched across the step & attached to the railing, shining under the stoop light. My first thought was what is that dumb dog doing out there at this time of night. I stared at him, suddenly realizing that that dog died 13 years ago. In the time it took me to blink & say OMG!!!, he was gone. I ran in the house telling everyone Smokey had just been there. My mother very nonchalantly said "Ohhh is that the first time youve seen him?" Apparently, he's visited before but she kept it to herself.
My grandfather lived upstairs from my parents. When he died, the place stayed empty for a while until my sister married & moved in. While it was still empty, we would hear my grandfathers footsteps walking back & forth. I feel kind of bad that none of us ever had the guts to go up & keep him company. We'd sit in my mothers kitchen, looking at the creaking ceiling, and tell grandma (who had died first) to come get grandpa. My sister lives there now with her family & occassionally hears the footsteps at night. She tells him he's scaring her & keeping her awake and they stop.
One afternoon when my sister and her family were not at home, years after my grandfather died, my brother (34 years old at the time) went upstairs to bring up her mail. As he got to the top of the stairs, he saw my grandfather sitting in his recliner chair. He almost died himself but said hey pop howyadoin? And grandpa vanished right in front of him. My brother was scared, but took my grandfather's special wine cup out of the china closet and had a glass of wine "with" him as they used to do -- talking to him a little about how much he missed him, just in case grandpa was still hanging around. Then my brother came back downstairs with his dark Italian complexion white as a sheet. He was freaked out, shaking uncontrollably and crying. I dont think Id have been upset though. In fact, I was jealous that he got to see him again and I never have.
Wow..cool stories and scary ones. Next question...do any of you feel like nurses and other healthcare professionals are more "sensitive" to this type of thing? I have thought that since we are exposed to death on a fairly regular basis and have (for the most part) come to terms with our own mortality we are able to "see" things ..I have read literature which talks about the fact that children are more open to these sort of experiences but I was wondering if perhaps those who deal with death on a regular basis are also?
Erin I had to reply back to this one. I'm actually a lab tech by trade (haven't found a good BB for lab yet, so here I am), but have been fortunate enough to work in facilities that have given me a lot of medical exposure beyond the "normal" lab arena. With that said, I have had several experiences with patients in different settings that were a bit unusual and some even downright eerie. Personally, I do believe that for whatever reason medical personnel seem to be more sensitive to this type of experience. I don't know if we become sensitive from being exposed more than the average person, or if we're already sensitive and that's one of the things that brings us into this type of field. Any thoughts out there?
For myself, the first experience that I had was when I was 10 yrs old. My grandfather was in the hospital. I really had no idea, however, what was going on, but from what I'm told no one expected him to pass so suddenly. I had fallen asleep and had what I thought was a dream. My grandfather and I were walking together down this dark, isolated road. I remember that in my dream the roadway was wet, as though it had just rained and off in the distance was a very bright light. The further we walked the brighter it became. Once we got very close, he turned to me and told me that I had to go home, but that he was going to walk into the light, so not to worry. I woke up at that minute and went to wake my mother up to tell her because it scared me. Less than 5 minutes later, the phone rang and it was the hospital....my grandfather had just passed away.
I know the story sounds so "textbook", but I was very young, barely 10 if that and I really had no knowledge of anything like that back then. To this day I can vividly remember everything in that dream.
I've spent the last few hours reading these posts! Wow, what great stories! While reading some it reminded me of something an old highschool friend told to me about a year ago and I wondered if anyone on this board ever heard this happen before........
Her husband became very ill with severe complications from diabetes. He was only about 44, so most of his immediate family were still alive. While in the hospital, he spent most of the time almost comatose, but in the last 36 hrs or so she said he became very "alert" and spent most of the time talking to deceased family members (grandparents, etc) all of which were verified (by name) through living family members. He would get very mad at her too because she couldn't see them. On his last day right before the clergy came in to give him last rights she said he started talking to someone he called "Art" and he had told Art that it was about time he showed up that he had been waiting on him, yet no one could seem to identify who Art was. After the clergy left, Brad passed shortly after. My friend thanked the priest and in passing briefly mentioned about his unusual conversation with someone they couldn't identify by the name of Art. The clergy went on to tell her that most of the time he hears small children tell him that. He said that because in the Lord's prayer there's the line that says "Our father who ART in heaven"...etc the children mistakenly think that God's name is "Art". Needless to say, she was very shocked by his reply to her and she talked about it for some time afterward.
Just wondered if anyone else on the board ever heard of that specifically happening.
Maybe it is a little of both as far as the sensitivity. I also think that as healthcare professionals we have the advantage since much of what we practice is "6th sense" stuff..I can' t tell you the number of times when I was at triage that a pt would come in and not present with classic sx but I would get the "gut" feeling that this person was in trouble..I learned to listen to it and I can't remember a time when it steered me wrong.....I think we are trained to disregard what we hear at times and really observe and feel what is going on.
I am still suprised that I got so many responses to this thread, when I first posted I wondered whether I would get some stories or people going, "Oh my god...crazy"..IMO most people have probably had at least one "experience" in their life but many don't for whatever reason give it any credibility or just brush it off.
My husband and I recently had a discussion about this..he said, "When people die they die ..they are gone" I asked him if he believed in ghosts..he just looked at me. Then I reminded him of the bed incident that he had told me about (I posted it somewhere here)..he had to admit he does believe so then I said..what about that? If we are gone then what was that..do you think only a select few souls get to carry on? He had no answer but I got him thinking I can tell.
I read a book several yrs back by James Van Praugh (sp?) "Talking to Heaven".. it was very good and it talked about the ability of people to show themselves after death to say goodbye. There was a part in it that I read and I thought..OMG that is what I saw when my godfather died (also posted here)..it described it exactly. Wish I could find the book, I would like to reread it. I think the guy has a TV show on cable now?
I had an encounter right after I had graduated from high school. A guy I went to school with was killed in a train/car accident. I had called my best friend early that morning after my vision and said the weirdest thing just happened. I proceeded to tell her what I had seen detail by detail up to the exact color and kind of car he was driving. It wasn't 10 minutes after I had talked to her she called back and told me Rick had died in a car/train accident and everything I had described actually happened.
Erin RN
396 Posts
Magik Girl
It sure does!! I think we are capable of much more than we know and there are obviously things out there around us we have no inkling of ( based on this thread!!). I like hearing about others experiences..pretty cool and scarey (with some)..Erin