What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

What Members Are Saying (AI-Generated Summary)

Members are sharing personal experiences and stories related to ghosts, spirits, and paranormal occurrences in healthcare settings. Some members discuss encounters with deceased loved ones or unexplained phenomena, while others share their interest in ghost stories and movies like "Doctor Sleep" and "The Shining." There is a mix of skepticism, curiosity, and belief in the supernatural among the forum participants.

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...

Having worked in Hospice for awhile, I know how common it is for people to talk to family members who have already passed on, prior to their own death.

I've been reading these many posts where the same thing occurs over and over.

I've never really been afraid of death. But I realized through these posts, that I don't have anyone to meet me on the other side. It has deeply saddened me. I have a daughter who God willing, will go after me. But other than that, I don't have anyone. My mother will go to hell, she is very evil, and I never knew my father. Maybe I'll have pets who will meet me, if they can care for humans. However pets do seem to prefer the company of men, sh**, guess I'm out of luck.

Who says that it has to be family? Maybe there will be a friend, co-worker or even a patient that you have left an impression on that will greet you on the other side. You never know . . . :twocents:

Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.

I think this belongs in here, because I don't know where else to put it and it continues to creep me out!

A couple of months ago, there was a very frail elderly woman who was in a great deal of pain. She was making a terrible moaning sound, and it actually scared other patients so we gave her a private room. She wasn't my patient, but she was in my district, and to me she sounded like a gol-dern goat.

I don't know if anyone else has heard this, but supposedly the devil walks on goat's feet, and hearing the sound of a goat at night is a sure sign the devil is coming to get someone. Something like that. Well, it was the night shift, and I was pretty freaked out...I actually refused to go into her room. Everyone was teasing me about it.

Fast forward twenty four hours, the same patient is on comfort care, and not making a sound because the Morphine drip was the thing to finally take her pain away. Her nurse is fairly new, and while I was clearing a pump, she stuck her head in the room and asked that I come right away. "I think she doesn't look so good..."

I told the nurse it was okay, that I would take a look at her and handle whatever needed to be handled. I walked into the patient's room...and she immediately drew her last breath. I waited for a few seconds, to see if she was just having an apneic moment...but no...she was dead. I felt for a pulse, listened for heart and lung sounds...nothing.

I walked out and paged the code chief (in our state we can't pronounced inpatient hospice patients, the code chief has to unless the attending comes in to do it). About a minute after I'd spoken to the doctor to make sure he was on his way (and, mind you, only the other nurse and I knew this woman had passed, no one else on staff knew), we heard a horrid, deep sigh that sounded like it was coming from another district on our floor. The other nurse and I looked at each other and agreed that it was kind of weird.

I walked over to the unit clerk's desk and asked for a death packet because our comfort care patient had expired. The charge nurse was standing there and said "OMG, was that horrible sound her last breath?" I told her it wasn't, that she had died before we heard it, and wasn't the sound coming from THAT direction? Oh no, she claimed, it was coming from YOUR direction. I asked around the floor, and no one claimed the person who made that awful noise...everyone agreed it was coming from the direction opposite them! So we never figured it out...and by golly that freaked me out!

This story didn't involve a ghost but still scared the pants off of me. One night while working LTC I was leaving my station to go down to the break room for a drink. The front doors of the facility had two long windows on each side of the doors. As I passed by the front doors I saw someone looking in one of the windows. It looked like Beetlejuice! Black around the eyes, red lips with blood running down the sides and freaky hair that stood up on the sides. Have you ever seen the cartoons where the character gets scared and tries to take off running but just can't seem to get traction and take off. Well that was me. I was trying to take off running but wasnt going anywhere for what felt like minutes but was a few seconds. Finally I took off and ran to the next nurses station. I had anohter nurse go with me and we peeked around the corner. He was still there. She said it does look like Beetlejuice! We called the police and they were there almost immediately. Ends up it was a drunk man who had been in a bar fight. His eyes were blacked and mouth busted. He was looking for the emergency room next door to our facility but was too drunk to figure out which building was which.

This may be the best post yet!!! Hee hee hee . . . :yeah:

i have had a very similar experience to the one described here . . . i'll post about it some time.

i heard this story for a colleague who was working on our floor's four-bedded step-down unit one night. i had been told in the past that people who are about to die can talk to or hear others who have already passed away. this could be hallucinations... but nonethless, this story was just creepy.

it was sometime in the middle of the night, so the lights were either off or dimmed to allow the patients to rest. my colleague had a patient who was actively dying and kept grabbing something in the air that wasn't there.

when she went over to ask if everything was alright, he turned to her and said, "well... aren't you going to talk to him?".

and my colleague kinda grinned and replied, "well.. who would that be?".

and the patient responded, "the man standing next to you...".

my colleague was too afraid to even turn around. of course, she knew nobody was there. whew. that gives me goosebumps.

i have a friend who doesn't believe in spirits/ghosts. she says that once you die, if you are intended for heaven you go straight there. she believes all spirits/shadows/ghosts are the devil. that he wants you on his side so bad that he will disguise himself as a grandson on a tricycle, a young girl, an infant, a beloved family member, etc.

hi, i agree with your friend, i am a devoted christian and have seen too much! here is a verse in the bible that clearly shows those who have passed do not return to speak to us or guide us.

luke 16:19-31. 'and besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.' (luke 16:26)

feel free to read this in the bible! in fact i staff church retreats that are specifically to set people free from any oppresive lifestyle and heal their soul,spirit, and physical body! you wouldnt believe the things ive seen at these retreats, god is good and he shows his mercy and glory at every single retreat but oh does the devil show up too! along with his demons. one time we prayed over this women whos husband had commited suicide just 2 months earlier and she was having an extremely hard time healing from this hard time ( he called her and rushed her home because he said he needed to show her something, right when she walked in the door he killed himself in front of her face!) she felt like he was at fault in someway, anyway as we prayed for her she suddenly became unconcious, she was in a locked state of mind (seen this before in oher deliverences) when we demanded the demon let her mind go in jesus christ's name she returned to herself and when we told her to order any demons of depression, anxiety, sadness, and guilt to leave from her she couldnt do it, she would close her mouth and nod no, and scream and say she couldnt because she saw her husband telling her not to, when i heard that i told her theabove verse; luke 16:26, she instantly was able to see it indeed was not her husband and how it was really a demon, she rebuked him in the lord's name and now lives a happy life. this is just one of the many stories i have to tell regarding demons posing as a loved one.

My best ghost story so far was when I was working as a chha and had several hospice clients. And no matter how much or how little time they had. I would know when they had died because when I would be at home in my bed, the client would appear to me(of course scaring me!) as plain a day, then turn and go silently out of my bedroom door and slamming it shut!! my husband and I were the only ones there, and he never saw or heard anything just me. When morning would come, I would get a call from the agency I worked for and before they could tell me I would tell them who died and they would always ask wow how did you know? I would reply I don't know because they would have thought I was nuts to say the client showed up last night in my room!! This happened several times, and to clients that I had a grown attached to, which is hard not to. Anyways that's my ghost story so far!!

My best ghost story so far was when I was working as a chha and had several hospice clients. And no matter how much or how little time they had. I would know when they had died because when I would be at home in my bed, the client would appear to me(of course scaring me!) as plain a day, then turn and go silently out of my bedroom door and slamming it shut!! my husband and I were the only ones there, and he never saw or heard anything just me. When morning would come, I would get a call from the agency I worked for and before they could tell me I would tell them who died and they would always ask wow how did you know? I would reply I don't know because they would have thought I was nuts to say the client showed up last night in my room!! This happened several times, and to clients that I had a grown attached to, which is hard not to. Anyways that's my ghost story so far!:typing

i'm not a nurse, although when i was younger i always wanted to be one. my sister is currently in nursing school and told me about this site/thread a while ago because we both love ghost stories. i've been reading it off and on ever since. yesterday i just got to the end of it.

anyway, i have spina bifida (myelomeningocele) so i've spent a lot of time in hospitals. it was during one of my many hospital stays a few years ago that i had a ghostly experience, (i was just in for a uti, so i wasn't on any medications that would make me hallucinate.) although it's quite tame compared to a lot of the stories i've read here.

it was around 10-11 pm when i was admitted into the room directly across from the nurses station, no roommate. a while later i'd gotten settled into bed (the one nearest the door) and had turned my lights out, ready for sleep. i had just begun to drift off when i opened my eyes, i was facing my open doorway as i don't like to face mirrors or windows while i'm sleeping (i'm a total wuss lol). when i opened my eyes i saw a little old white-haired lady standing in my doorway just staring at me. when i blinked, she was gone. there is no way that she would have been able to move away from the doorway and down the hall (no shadow) without me seeing her as i had literally only blinked and she'd disappeared. i didn't feel the least bit scared, which is strange for me. but i did end up sleeping with my blanket over my head that night. i didn't want to know if that lady came back lol.

i later told my family about this experience and of course they didn't believe me. they thought i was either dreaming or hallucinating.

:redbeathe:heartbeat Thank you for sharing your story. I'm sooo sooo sorry for you loss . . . what an experience. Not a ghost story but a love story.

It's taken me a really long time to post this, I wouldn't believe it myself if it hadn't happened to me, and if my best friend wasn't there to witness it. We've been best friends since middle school, went to nursing school together and now work at the same hospital in Virginia. I'm an ER nurse and she's a floater, on December 11, 2007 she was working in the ER with me to help cover due to holiday vacations.

On the week of Halloween my boyfriend and I decided to take the plunge and move in together, he's a Fire Fighter / EMT. We met in the ER when he was bringing in a patient.

It as a very quiet night in the ER, I was running vitals on a new patient who came in complaining of chest pains when my friend walked in to tell me I had a phone call. She gave me a quick wink when she told me "I'll take over", I already knew who was on the phone. When I picked up the reciever at the nurses station it was the love of my life, Garrett. He started out with his normal, boisterous "Hey Baby!" It's funny how two words can make you smile, then he told me "I'm getting ready to leave" I just thought he was heading to the fire house as I knew he was working that night. Then he said, "I wanted to hear you voice one more time before I left...... I love you...." I laughed and told him I loved him and I would see him soon, then in a really quiet voice he said "yeah, you will." I told him I loved him one more time and we hung up, I went back to my patient and relayed the conversation to my best friend.

Within a few minutes it seemed as if our hospital was surrounded by lights and sirens. Three police cars and two fire trucks flanking one ambulance. Everyone available suited up and gloved up. I went back to my chest pains patient who I think was looking more for a warm bed then meds to help with the pain. I saw the gurney rush in, EMT's were performing CPR, there was total chaos.

After a few minutes when I had my patient settled in and a bed ready for him upstairs I walked out of his room and saw a few of the EMT's Garrett worked with standing with their backs to me looking into the trauma room with the new patient. I called Briggs name walking towards them and when he turned around he had a grave expression on his face. The first thing he said to me was, "I didn't know you were working tonight" I told him yes, Garrett and I were both working tonight. Then I asked, what's wrong? All of them were staring at me, no one moved, so I asked again - louder "What's Wrong?!" I looked over Briggs shoulder into the trauma room and felt my world collapse around me. Garrett was lying on the gurney, intebated, defibrillators against his chest, there was blood everywhere. I screamed and tried to bolt into the room, to touch him, to hold him, to do anything I could to help. Briggs caught me around the waist and held on so tight I realized within the next few days I had bruises on my sides. I just remember crumpling to the floor watching - helpless, sobbing and screaming his name. The doctors pronounced him at 8:42pm. His Nissan Titan had been t-boned (drivers side) by a tractor trailer going roughly 50 mph. There was no hope....

The day before the funeral several of us were sitting at our house....my house....no one was really talking we were just....sitting there. My best friend broke the silence and said, "Well, you were able to talk to him one last time, able to say I love you before he died." I smiled, a fresh batch of tears started, I just shook my head and whispered, "the accident must have happened a few minutes after he called." I looked across the living room and Briggs had an odd expression on his face, I asked what was wrong - he asked me "What time did you talk to Garrett", I thought about it for a few minutes and then my expression matched his, then I answered him "About 20 minutes before you brought him in...." Briggs stared at me. My best friend asked, "Why do you ask?" Still staring at me Briggs answered "Because that's not possible, we recieved the call at the station at 7:36, we were on the scene by 7:41 and Garrett wasn't concious, by the time we pulled him out of the truck a little after 8:00 he didn't have a pulse, we started CPR immediately. Stacy, there's no way you could have talked to Garrett before we brought him in.... he was already dead."

No one in the room spoke, we all knew it had happened, my best friend answered the phone herself, Garrett said hello to her first and asked to speak to me. Other nurses and doctors around the nursing station overhead our conversation. He called to say he loved me one more time before he left.........

Months of therapy, weeks of vacation before stepping foot back into the ER. Some wounds never fully heal, and I don't really consider this a ghost story because I don't consider the man I loved most in this world a ghost - everyday I cherish the fact that I was allowed to talk to him one more time..... And I know he's still with me.... my firefighter....

HOLY MOLY! Some would have been helping me put "miss Edna" in bed! :crying2:

I have a story that is not really a ghost story... it's a dementia story, really, but it still scared the pee outa me at the time.

I was putting "Edna" to bed one night. She did have dementia and was also veeeerrrry paranoid.

Anyway, I had her wheelchair by her bed and was getting ready to put her in when she yells, "Honeeee! There's a man under the bed!"

So I, all ready to reassure her, kneel down, swipe my hand around under the bed and say, "See, Edna, there's no one there!"

Edna screamed and goes, "Look out! Look out! He's evil... and he's looking right back at you!"

Of course, I'm down there on the floor with my hand under the bed and she's telling me this.

It gave me the heebie jeebies and, like a kid afraid of monsters under the bed, I was waiting for someone to grab my ankles the whole rest of the time I was putting her to bed!

Specializes in NICU.

Hey everyone.

I few months ago we had a little old lady who was in her 90s. She had dementia but was always able to recognize her family members. Sometimes she knew she was in the hospital and sometimes she didn't. Her dementia always got much worse at night.

She had an older son who lived with her and took care of her at home. He came to visit everyday. Well the day before her planned discharge her son called up to the hospital. I spoke with him and he told me he had a cold and wasn't going to come up to the hospital to see his mom today. He told me to tell her that he loved her and that he would see her soon. I told the patient this and she was quite upset. She was always tearful in the evenings and she cried when I told her he wasn't coming. I work days so I left at 7.

The next morning the night nurse told me she cried all night and kept talking about the house being on fire. Of course they tried to calm her down but couldn't. When I went in to assess her that morning her eyes were blood shot and she looked awful. She turned to me and asked, "Did that boy die in the fire? If he did please just tell me, I need to know." I calmly reminded her that she was in the hospital and that there hasn't been a fire.

Later that morning her other family members were at the nurses station and wanted to talk to me. They told me that the patient wasn't going to be able to be discharged home today because there wasn't any one to take care of her. They told me that her oldest son was cooking the night before and the house caught fire. Her son was airlifted to the closest burn center and his prognosis was extremely poor. They asked me not to tell the patient anything about the fire. I explained to them how she had been acting and the things she had said to me. They were shocked but decided to still not tell her.

I'm not sure if they ever told her b/c I was off the next day, and I'm not sure if her son died or not. But the patient ended up having to go to a nursing home....

Talk about motherly intuition.

Gave me chills

Tiger.

i have a friend who doesn't believe in spirits/ghosts. she says that once you die, if you are intended for heaven you go straight there. she believes all spirits/shadows/ghosts are the devil. that he wants you on his side so bad that he will disguise himself as a grandson on a tricycle, a young girl, an infant, a beloved family member, etc.

hi, i agree with your friend, i am a devoted christian and have seen too much! here is a verse in the bible that clearly shows those who have passed do not return to speak to us or guide us.

luke 16:19-31. 'and besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.' (luke 16:26)

feel free to read this in the bible! in fact i staff church retreats that are specifically to set people free from any oppresive lifestyle and heal their soul,spirit, and physical body! you wouldnt believe the things ive seen at these retreats, god is good and he shows his mercy and glory at every single retreat but oh does the devil show up too! along with his demons. one time we prayed over this women whos husband had commited suicide just 2 months earlier and she was having an extremely hard time healing from this hard time ( he called her and rushed her home because he said he needed to show her something, right when she walked in the door he killed himself in front of her face!) she felt like he was at fault in someway, anyway as we prayed for her she suddenly became unconcious, she was in a locked state of mind (seen this before in oher deliverences) when we demanded the demon let her mind go in jesus christ's name she returned to herself and when we told her to order any demons of depression, anxiety, sadness, and guilt to leave from her she couldnt do it, she would close her mouth and nod no, and scream and say she couldnt because she saw her husband telling her not to, when i heard that i told her theabove verse; luke 16:26, she instantly was able to see it indeed was not her husband and how it was really a demon, she rebuked him in the lord's name and now lives a happy life. this is just one of the many stories i have to tell regarding demons posing as a loved one.

thanks for that. that was so interesting and i've never seen spirits and stuff thought of like that. i was baptised and raised as an anglican. when i returned to my people, spirituality was something our people held sacred and it was considered a gift to be able to speak with the spirits and souls of the people and animals. also, the children are the ones with the connection to the spirit world and it wasn't something to be afraid of.

it's very interesting how cultures differ so immensely.

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