What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

[Chad_KY_SRNA]

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.

[MaryAnn_RN]

One night I was caring for a dying male patient. He was scared and I spent quite some time with him, trying to calm and reassure him. Eventually he calmed and I left the bedside and went over to the nurses station which was about 15 feet away. As I sat down I glanced over to him and there was a black shape standing over the bed, looking down at the patient. I was terrified, and am sure it was something evil.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

CharmCityRN said:

I'd have to say nurse managers. I've heard they exist, but I very rarely see one.

Funny ?

We have a nursing supervisor, who is available for us most of the time. She is also the ER nurse. The only one. So she has two separate and complicated responsibilities.

I am the nursing sup/ER nurse today - I do it part-time since getting my MICN a few years ago. This morning I set up a room for a planned cesarean today. I also check the patient's labs for the nurses. We try to help out - but if there are alot of patients in the ER or a code or something, we are just unavailable. If we try to help when we can, the nurses usually understand.

steph

[nursey_girl]

I used to work in and old labor and delivery unit. It was a small hospital, so often times I was back there by myself. I liked to keep the lights low and things quite back there, so naturally I heard a lot of creeps and groans. There was a whole back hall unused, there was also no access to it accept by passing me. I could hears metal objects clanging, and doors shutting. Sounded like somebody was getting ready for a c section.I could always sense something there with me it seemed. There was also a back room on the med surg floor that was never used. It was a patient room converted to a storage room. That room was strange... Call light always going off, and nobody near it...Whole hospital had a creepy aura...Maybe it was the cemetary next door..If that in itself is not strange....

[stidget99]

I used to work in a state inst for developmentally disabled. We were temp relocated to another building for remodeling of our bldg. Anyways...I was working one nite, 2nd shift. We had a locked pica unit. I saw one of the residents walking down the hall. Very distinct gait and very distinct yellow t-shirt w/ a happy face on it. I went into the ward to let staff know that they had an escapee. This was a serious situation because this particular resident, Larry, would ingest absolutely anything (from clothing to pens to belts to *ugh* a bird's head)...literally anything. He was also very reluctant to go back to his home ward (hence why I didn't bring him back myself...he needed two escorts). When we got back into the hall, less than 15 secs later, Larry was gone!! We searched the entire building! Outside, downstairs, all wards...he was NO WHERE to be found!!! This whole search lasted last than 10 mins because I had all extra staff looking for him. I was just about to call the house supervisor to let her know that we "lost" someone when out from the bathroom walks Larry w/ one of the staff. He had been getting his bath in the bathroom for the last 30 mins or so. Kind of freaky! I absolutely, without a doubt, saw Larry in the hallway. I never would've short-staffed the wards like I did if I hadn't seen him! Like I said, very distinctive gait, look, clothing. I took a lot of razzing that nite! They all thought that I was crazy. Anyways, come to find out the next day, after the story goes around that I am crazy (haha, gigglegiggle, funnyfunny)..............Larry had an identical twin brother who died in that building 10 yrs previously.

[nckdl]

I work in a LTC facility and we have had numerous reports from pts that they have seen a little boy. This boy comes in their rooms, turns their call lights on and off, throw things on the floor. This facility used to be an orphanage!! Also there are stories of a oldfashioned nurse in the whole white dress and hat, would be seen going down the hall late at night doing her bed check and would go into someones room and stay there for a couple minutes if they were really sick or about to die. Well I guess one aide seen her awhile back and refused to go down that hall for a week, the persons room she went in just came back from the hospital still really sick.

[Chad_KY_SRNA]

We have a white figure that has been seen in the medicine room, sometimes the carts are moved down the hall while you are in a room giving meds, etc. One of the male CNAs reported seeing a very tall black figure going from room to room several times. We have all seen balls of light floating around. From what we have been able to gather from old pictures of the property that the nursing home is on there was a mobile home park at one end and a cemetary at the other end of the building. Everyone has seen a little boy walking around but the freakiest part was when they saw wet childrens foot prints coming down the hall and followed them to the wall and there were footprints in the snow outside that came right to that place in the wall.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

I know several. I'll share more later if there is any interest:

We had a black girl, about 10 in ICU that was severely injured in a car accident. Lots of brain damage. She didn't die there but was moved to another facility after weeks and weeks.

After that, I know of 3 older black males, in their 50's, that, if they were even mildly sedated, would ask about the little black girl with the ribbon in her hair who was sitting at the foot of their beds.

One guy said, "she asked me how I was doing, and then got up and walked that way" while he was pointing towards the 2nd floor window. He paused, a wide-eyed look came over his face, and then he said, 'But I guess she really couldn't have left the room that way, huh?"

Personally, I think she was taking care of grandfatherly figures.

I worked in an ICU where a prisoner convicted of murder died in ICU 1 - and nobody would put a patient in that room after that cause the air was too heavy and the room was too spooky and 'dark'. It was so bad (nurses would refuse to put patients in the room even if it was the last available bed; they'd triage out a patient before they'd trust putting a patient in that bed 1), that the hospital eventually closed down the room and knocked out a wall to make it a separate entrance into the unit.

I used to collect ghost stories: I know several.

~faith

Timothy.

[pricklypear]

You guys are freaking me out!! The only thing I've seen is pretty tame. I went in to set up a room for a new patient. I turned off the screensaver on the monitor, and it was showing a resp rate of 6, big, deep breaths, then shallow ones - like cheyne stokes. I thought maybe the leads were swinging on the floor, but they were curled up on the shelf without any electrodes on them, like they always are. It wasn't picking up telemetry, because our tele only transmits cardiac rhythms. The pattern didn't stop until we put the new patient on the monitor. Never saw it again. I've never seen any ghosts or other stuff, though. I'd probably pee myself.

[Jdon]

I was working in the nicu when we had a threat of a tornado. Some Nurses got pulled to go to a sister hospital in town to assist in the disaster plan. When all was over one of the nurses returned with this story: She was assissting the nurses in giving some meds before pulling all into the hallways. Every pt she went to said they already had their meds from that nice nurse in the white uniform and hat. She realized after she left that its been awhile since a nurse has worn a hat. That story revealed the urban ledgen of Nurse Betty. Story goes she had an affair with a married md, became pregnant then agreed to allow him to perform an abortion on her on the 2nd floor OR room.She died and he went to jail. She never left the hospital and was seen frequently. The local newspaper would do an article of her every year around halloween on her sightings. The hospital has since been replaced with college dorms. Hmmmm i wonder if any students have seen her?

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

Heard a story once about a 5th floor neuro unit. This was told to me first person. Nurse was at the desk and a guy in white nursing garb came through the double doors, walked into an empty room, and didn't come back out.

Nurse thought it was wierd so he went into the room, and it was empty.

He went to the double doors and opened them and there were 2 resp techs talking at the entrance who swore they'd been there talking the whole time and that nobody came through the doors.

When one of his co-workers returned from lunch and he explained what happened, she was like, "Oh, that's just bob (actually I don't remember the name, so the name were changed to protect my ignorance). He worked here as an lvn years ago and was accused of molesting a child. He was sure he was about to be arrested so he jumped out the window in that room and killed himself. We see him all the time . . ."

[no-recall]

The story of "Rocking Mary." We closed room 12 in our MICU because just about every patient that has been there since Mary died complaints of seeing a woman in wearing a white habit rocking back and forth by their bedside. Apparently this nun never makes eye contact...just stares outside the window which happens to be on the patient left side over their head. This window overlooks the hospital cemetery where nuns that have died where buried. Mary was a nun that died of a car accident outside the hospital back in the 50's. She was only about 30 years old and all patient describes her as a young woman. We all thought that it was the "sun-down syndrome." Anyways, since then room 12 became our storage room where no one goes in by themselves unless it is absolutely critical.