The Patient in Bed 519

[LifelongDream]

I work on a Peds floor that is quiet on most nights from April-September. On the quiet nights, the call light will sound 4-5 times. If there is a patient in that room, nothing. My charge nurse has started turning on the lights and putting the siderails up on the crib for our invisible patient. When the call light sounds, we still say "Hello, can we help you?" even though we know no one is there... or is there????. I always chuckle when I tell the nurse the "Patient in 519 is calling again".

When this first started happening, I was telling the daytime nurse about it. She said sometimes the button gets stuck; Let's go look at it. I go nervously down the hall, lean over to look at the call light and it's fine. I push the button and it activates. I reset it and shrug my shoulders. As the day nurse and I walk out of the room, the CNA is hiding outside of the door and jumps toward me. The patient across the hall was just leaving the room and everyone had a good laugh. They think it's funny, but what about the patient in bed 519????

[Keepstanding, ASN, RN]

it's just a "fig-newton" of your imagination !

praiser :redbeathe

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

we used to have a room like that. Even if you took out the call button we still got occassional calls. Special smells emanated from the room at times and other weird stuff occured. Interesting that when we closed that unit for remodeling the contractor told me that they experienced weird stuff in that room too. I told him we had a resident ghost but he did not seem amused.

[ReWritten]

I just finished my preceptorship in a NeuroICU, and we had the same thing. The first time I experienced it, the pt in the room had just passed and we had taken him down to the morgue when his call light went off and no one was in there. The nurses told me that they do have a ghost in the unit. It's a female ghost (I can't remember the story), and she'll also be in rooms with patients and press call buttons when the pt is obviously unable to do so (on vent & knocked out or even one time the call button was by the sink).

[LA_StudentNurse]

I just finished my preceptorship in a NeuroICU, and we had the same thing. The first time I experienced it, the pt in the room had just passed and we had taken him down to the morgue when his call light went off and no one was in there. The nurses told me that they do have a ghost in the unit. It's a female ghost (I can't remember the story), and she'll also be in rooms with patients and press call buttons when the pt is obviously unable to do so (on vent & knocked out or even one time the call button was by the sink).

Wouldn't it be nice if she could get her RN degree...after all, an extra hands, etc....

[lisamc1RN, LPN]

We recently had a long time patient of ours pass away. He had always had the tv on and was always on the call light. We adored him. He was one of those guys who loved to chat and loved to eat. When he passed away, we were saddened, even though it had been expected. For several nights after, the room remained empty, but for some reason the call light would go off and the tv would be found on. Finally, after one of the CNA's had me go down the hall with her to turn off the tv yet again, I decided that enough was enough. I went into the room, turned off the tv and opened the window. "It's time to leave now, Mr. X. Go be with your loved ones and be at peace." I left the window open and left the room. We haven't had trouble with the tv or call light since. :)

[Sue Damonas, BSN]

I worked on a unit where often times when someone died the callbell in that particular room would go off mysteriously for a day or so. There was one instance where a patient died and all kinds of wierd stuff happened in the room and the patient had been close to one of the social workers. She had to walk in the room and close the door and have a talk with him and then all of the activity stopped.

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

I left the window open and left the room.

We used to have door that we could open to the outside. The smoker loved it! I used to open that door after every death to let the spirit out. That door is now locked due to "security" reasons. I feel like the spirits are trapped on the unit much longer after a death now. They seem to eventually find their way out, but I don't think they move as easily as when I could open that door for them!