I don't know how many of you believe in ghosts. I always have and have experienced odd things at different times throughout my life but never anything like this. I was so freaked out by this and I still am. My coworkers think it's rather funny, but I was really scared!
I had to drop off the chart of a pt who had expired several hours before, to medical records. I went down to the basement to drop it. It is not unusual for me to go to the basement alone, as our pharmacy is down there and the vending machines too. So, I thought nothing of it. Our OR is in the basement in what used to be the old morgue. Well anyway, I was walking down the hall past the OR and I noticed movement in the ceiling mirror and looked up. Walking behind me was a pt in a hospital gown pushing an IV pole. It was 0430 so I thought this was odd. I turned around, ready to ask her if I could help her, or if she was lost or whatever and there was no one there! I quickly looked back to the ceiling mirror where I saw her but this time she was "filmy" and transparent. I turned around again and she was gone!!! When I tell you I ran, I mean I RAN! I have never moved so quickly in my life. I ran up the stairs to my floor (the 4th). When I arrived I was very out of breath from sprinting up 4 flights in about 2 seconds. One of the nurses I work with looked up and jumped up to come over to me. She was like "oh my goodness! Are you ok? You are WHITE! You look like you just saw a ghost!" Um Yes actually I did!
This was a couple of nights ago and I haven't been back to work since, but let me tell you, I will not be going down to the basement alone for a while!
Great story. You either belive or you don't. I belive mainly becouse my father-in-law "lives" in our barn. When we had cows he would let them loose or open doors. we would even make a double check befor leaving the barn to make all the cowes were tied up and doors closed and snaped. Next time in the barn a cow loose or a door open. When these things happen my husband will say "OK dad stop it" sometimes it works most of the time not. One day saw him standing in the door way to barn. I was on the other side of the road. He turned around and went into the barn.
Wow, I wonder if any of my coworkers have a voodoo doll in my image and are trying to eliminate me! Wouldn't that be interesting? Ineffective, but interesting.
I think it would be very interesting to encounter a ghost in the hall. I don't know that I would find it frightening, though. If someone is not of this world, can they truly harm you? Is it scary more because of the unknown and unexpected? And why does it always seem that on each unit there are just certain rooms that more people die in than others? I can remember an experience from my first year as a nurse when I did subacute care. A woman was dying and we couldn't place her in a private room. Her roommate was aware of what was going on (the dying woman was a dnr, so we weren't coding her or anything), and she told me she was scared until an angel came and told her it was okay, that she was not going to die there. Interesting.
I started out as an NA on a peds floor MANY years ago. I was in high school so just worked summers. There was a wooden cut-out of an animal mounted outside each room, several different kinds of animals. Each room that had a monkey mounted outside had a patient who died that summer, and none of the other rooms had a patient die in them while I was there.
As an RN about 15 years ago we had a very mentally disturbed patient (chronic) in with a medical condition on our surgical floor. I am used to mentally ill patients but there was something really creepy about this woman. I left her room once quite shaken, shut the door and went down to the nurses' station about 150 feet away. Another nurse asked how it was going and I whispered to her that I had the feeling that this patient was possessed. A few minutes later I went back into the patient's room. She turned her head to glare at me and said loudly, "I am not possessed!" There was no possible way she could have heard me and nobody else had gone in her room to tell her that I said it (not that anybody would). It really bothered me then, and still does.
Oh, I wish something like that would happen to me!!! I'm so jealous! Have any of your co-workers experienced anything like that in the hospital?
Fawn - I'm glad it's not just me!! I would love that. My dh is a nsg sup at one of our hospitals and he has been over almost every inch of it - "Ghost stories" are rampant there, and he has yet to find one.
When I tell you I ran, I mean I RAN! I have never moved so quickly in my life. I ran up the stairs to my floor (the 4th). When I arrived I was very out of breath from sprinting up 4 flights in about 2 seconds. One of the nurses I work with looked up and jumped up to come over to me. She was like "oh my goodness! Are you ok? You are WHITE! You look like you just saw a ghost!" Um Yes actually I did! 
redfoxLPN
18 Posts
Great story. You either belive or you don't.
I belive mainly becouse my father-in-law "lives" in our barn. When we had cows he would let them loose or open doors. we would even make a double check befor leaving the barn to make all the cowes were tied up and doors closed and snaped. Next time in the barn a cow loose or a door open. When these things happen my husband will say "OK dad stop it" sometimes it works most of the time not. One day saw him standing in the door way to barn. I was on the other side of the road. He turned around and went into the barn. 