What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

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...

[BabyCatchr, ADN, ASN, RN]

I apologize. That member has not posted for a long time. The matter has been resolved.

[UK2USA]

Not a ghost story (maybe an urban myth), but scary all the same:

A group of 4 nursing students were on their last day of a clinical placement and were very happy to be finishing. They decided that they would go out after their shift had finished to celebrate. However, by the evening one of the four had had such a tough day that she decided to stay in the dormitory and get an early night. The other three head to the nearest bar, where one of them realizes that she left her cash back at the dormitory. "Thats ok" said the other two, "we are walking past the dormitory on our way to the next bar, we can pick up the cash then". They had a few drinks and when it came time to move on to the next bar one of them slipped into the dorm building. Seeing no light on when she opened the door to their room she decided to be kind and knowing that her cash was on her bedside cabinet she tiptoed in with the lights off, grabbed her cash and tiptoed out.

Several hours later.....

The girls arrive home in the small hours and as they are walking up the street they see a lot of police activity. As they reach the police cordon they are stopped and asked to move on. They explain that they live in the dorm building and are immediately taken to a senior officer who explains that there has been a terrible incident and that their friend has been killed. They are not allowed into the building because the forensic team is there. One of the girls needs to get her medication which is in the room, so the senior officer relents and escorts her into the building. When they enter the room it is full of forensic teams in white jump suits. The matress is covered in blood. When she goes into the bathroom to get her medication she sees a message written on the bathroom mirror in her own lipstick...

"YOU WERE LUCKY THAT YOU NEVER TURNED ON THE LIGHTS!"

[CareteamRN70]

Your story does have elements of an urban myth but also is very close to a very real series of events that occured in Boston 1962-1963 with a serial rapist/murderer who became known as the Boston Strangler. For some strange reason a lot of his victims were nurses or worked in the medical field.

""WARNING" links give very graphic portrayals of the crimes and crime scenes.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896645,00.html reprint of a story in Time Magazine from 1963

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/boston/index_1.html very graphic depiction of the Bostone strangler muders.

[UK2USA]

And now a true story.

On our unit we were caring for a pt who was in heart failure. He was so skinny, but had this bloated belly. He was a DNR case and was fully aware that he was going to die. One evening he started to go downhill very fast and was very aware of what was happening and was very scared. He suddenly revoked the DNR order and asked that we resuscitate him. What happened next was bizarre - he arrested and we set about the resus, except the bed kept repositioning into a chair position. It must have been a short in the electrics or something. Anyway the resus was unsuccessful - coding a person in a seated position does not work well.

A few months later I was looking after a patient who had a really rocky recovery post op. Her mother was terrified. When we were finally able to extubate her the mother started to update her on what had happened and how close to death she had been. The patient turned to her mother and told her not to worry.... the skinny man with the big belly had been with her and had told her she was going to be ok. She couldn't tell her the mans name - he had never told her.. but he had a bird on his shoulder. The patient that died had an eagle tattooed on the upper arm!

[UK2USA]

Your story does have elements of an urban myth but also is very close to a very real series of events that occured in Boston 1962-1963 with a serial rapist/murderer who became known as the Boston Strangler. For some strange reason a lot of his victims were nurses or worked in the medical field.

""WARNING" links give very graphic portrayals of the crimes and crime scenes.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896645,00.html reprint of a story in Time Magazine from 1963

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/boston/index_1.html very graphic depiction of the Bostone strangler muders.

Very interesting - thanks for the article.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

And now a true story.

On our unit we were caring for a pt who was in heart failure. He was so skinny, but had this bloated belly. He was a DNR case and was fully aware that he was going to die. One evening he started to go downhill very fast and was very aware of what was happening and was very scared. He suddenly revoked the DNR order and asked that we resuscitate him. What happened next was bizarre - he arrested and we set about the resus, except the bed kept repositioning into a chair position. It must have been a short in the electrics or something. Anyway the resus was unsuccessful - coding a person in a seated position does not work well.

A few months later I was looking after a patient who had a really rocky recovery post op. Her mother was terrified. When we were finally able to extubate her the mother started to update her on what had happened and how close to death she had been. The patient turned to her mother and told her not to worry.... the skinny man with the big belly had been with her and had told her she was going to be ok. She couldn't tell her the mans name - he had never told her.. but he had a bird on his shoulder. The patient that died had an eagle tattooed on the upper arm!

Wow, your story is very good.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

now i have a true story that happened in the small pa city where i live. her name was cindy song. she was a psu undergrad student from korea. some of you may have seen her story on the tv show without a trace.

the night she disappeared, she had been out with some friends, and had gone home to her apartment located near our local giant market at around 2 am. cindy liked to party with friends, but nobody saw her with the exception of someone picking her up in a car at our local walmart in the early morning hours. that was when she disappeared.

top investigators were hired, the local newspapers were covered with news of her disappearance, and even private dectives were hired to look for anything that might have led to her disappearance. nothing was found, and nothing was out of place in her apartment. the police even checked her emails and and anything that might give a lead to her disappearance. a famous medium was also hired, but no trace of her was ever found.

this happened around 5 years ago, and still there is no news about her whereabouts.

[I_LOVE_TRAUMA, RN]

Okay, I love Halloween, its just around the corner ya know. I think this is bump worthy!

I have one...

My husband's cousin and her family moved into a new home. Her, her husband, and their 2 y/o daughter. She was always talking to and playing with someone. Her grandpa, who babysat her often and would stay the night there began telling his wife, daughter, and son-in-law that he would not stay there ever again, that he would have to babysit at his house. You have to picture this guy-sweet as a teddy bear, but 6'2", 300lbs., biker, covered with tattoos-never took any crap, and not scared of anything.

We all would make fun of him when he talked about seeing a little girl ghost. He said he only saw her once, but felt her, and heard her there all of the time. He also noticed how his granddaughter was always playing with this little girl.

Well, he was terrified and refused to go into the house anymore, whenever he talked about it he would appear visably shaken. We all laughed and continued to tease him.

Well one night he ended up babysitting. He agreed to meet his daughter at the house because she was getting off work late. So there they were at the house, just him and his grandaughter, and the mom got tied up at work.

When she arrived home 30 min later she found her dad dead on the floor. Of coorifice she called 9-1-1 right away (which his wife was running sqaud that night and I was working in the hospital that they brought him to.

Well, we have never seen anything like it in our whole lives! Although the autopsy ruled his official cause of death was due to a massive MI, if you could have seen the look on his face, eyes wide as saucers, mouth gaped open-sheer terror!! His wife wouldn't even have an open casket.

We all know that he was really scared to death.

We never went back into that house, they had movers pack it up-none of us ever wanted to see what he saw there.

[DNM-BSN]

I had a patient a few months ago that still freaks me out when I think about it. She was brought to the ER c/o weaknesss. She said she was usually able to get around ok on her own even though she was used a walker, but she has been feeling very weak lately.

When I was triaging her, she would look at me when I spoke to her and answer my questions, then she would look to her right (I was on the left side of her bed) and nod she would her head either yes or no, as if answering questions. I was starting to think she had a little dementia or psych or something going on. I was waiting for the monitor to give me her blood pressure, which I had on her left arm. She held her right arm out straight, was watching it, held it there for a moment and placed it back on her lap. I thought it was weird, but just kind of shook my head and continued doing what I was doing?

I finished up the triage and printed it out for the doctor, who put in orders to have blood drawn. A few minutes later, the ER tech comes up to me and asks if I aleady drew the patient's blood because the patient is telling her that I did it. I told her that I hadn't, so we both walked back into the room. I asked the patient who drew her blood at the same time, I check both of her arms for a bandaid for proof that she had been stuck by a needle, which there was none. She pointed to me and said, "She did". I pointed to myself and said, "Me?" She said, "No, the other nurse". Me and the tech were the only other 2 people in the room. She said "no, the nurse in the all white. She said she was going to my nurse tonight." I felt my heart about to pound out of chest. First of all, no one in the ER where I work wears all white; second, I usually introduce myself as their nurse "while they are here in the ER", I never specify a timeframe; and third, my shift was ending in a few hours anyway, I would have never said that I was going to be her nurse "tonight". The tech and I looked at each other and I told the patient that I was going to check with the lab to make sure they got her blood and I got out of the room as fast as I could, tech right behind me. I knew damn well that the lab didn't have her blood bcs it wasn't drawn. We told her that lab never received it and the tech went back to draw it, a little freaked out but she got it.

The patient was eventually admitted to the hospital and just before the end of my shift, she was being transported upstairs. The next day at work, the charge nurse brings me a copy of the patient's chart and asked me if I remembered this patient from yesterday. She told me that the patient died through the night. I was surprised becasue no one thought she would die.

A few days went by and I couldn't stop thinking about it. One night before I went home, I went upstairs to the floor where she was admitted, hoping that the nurse who took care of her was there. Lucky for me, she was. I told her about what happened when the pt was in the ER and asked her if the patient said or did anything weird like that while she had her. She said no, the only thing that she thought was odd was that when she went around to check on her patients after she recieved report, she asked the patient if she needed anything else. The patient said that she was fine and didn't need anything because the nurse from downstairs was taking care of her. She said she just blew it off thinking the patient was just a little confused.

I left the hospital totally freaked out. And I still get a little freaked about it whenever I have to go into that room.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

we have never seen anything like it in our whole lives! Although the autopsy ruled his official cause of death was due to a massive MI, if you could have seen the look on his face, eyes wide as saucers, mouth gaped open-sheer terror!! His wife wouldn't even have an open casket.

We all know that he was really scared to death.

I had this same experience my first day on the job as a nurses aide in a nursing home near where I lived. I had cleaned my patient up from a very messy BP that he wiped all over himself. A short while later, I returned to his room to check on him, and he had that same look. I shall always remember it, and that 45 years ago.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

I have attended many dying patients over the years. Several times, as I was comforting them, they have stopped talking to me, looked beyond where I was standing and called out.. Mom... or, Uncle Joe... what are you doing here? They both died within seconds. I once rushed into the room of a patient straight-lining and the song on the bedside radio was Stairway to Heaven.Next song was Turn the Beat Around!!! Now a firm believer someone comes to take us to the next level.

[But_I_Play_One_on_TV]

When I was a kid, we moved to Florida. My family were only the second owners of the house, which was fairly new. I don't know how long it took for me to start hearing noises. I would tell my mom every night at bedtime that I kept hearing a sound in my room; I described it as the sound of a housecoat dragging across the carpet. I don't know how long that went on for. Sometimes it got to me and I would get out of bed and cross the hall. Now, that hall was very long and at night quite dark. I would never look down the hall. Just put my head down and cross quickly and get into my parents' room to report the sound. I would always be put back to bed. Seemingly, my mom never believed me, and certainly my dad thought I was being childish. The sound must have stopped after a while, because as I got older I don't recall hearing it.

One night, I opted to spend the night in the living room in a "fort" made of overturned chairs and blankets thrown over them. I had the ceiling fan running and it would make this "wap wap wap WAP" sound, once about every 5 seconds. Laying there in the dark, that sound just kept seeming louder and louder and the vibe more and more oppressive. I eventually got scared enough to bolt down that hallway and into my own room.

That was what I experienced. My mom on the other hand reported a lot more, and only recounted her experiences to me long after we'd moved. We always slept with the bedroom doors closed. On several occassions, she heard my door slam open. when she went to check, the door was closed and I was in bed asleep.

We had a large living room with lots of cabinets. Every morning (meaning EVERY morning we lived there) she would walk through that room on her way to the kitchen and would hear one of the cabinets thump closed, as if one of the doors had been open just a little.

She awoke one night to the sound of my closet doors rattling open and shut. She went in to see what I was doing. I was asleep on the bed, curled up. All the bedding had been stripped. She looked in the closet and discovered my bedding, wadded up on the floor. I have no recolection of that.

One night, she heard their bedroom door open and, presumably, me walk across the carpeted floor to her bedside. She had her back turned, so she couldn't see. She felt a nudge at her shoulder. Thinking it was me, she asked, "What do you want?" When there was no response, she turned on the light and discovered that there was no one there.

My dad denied everything. He only had one experience that we know of, which was shared with my mom. They were in their bedroom. She was watching TV and he was close by. They had a sliding glass door in the room, which was wide open. Mom reports that it slammed shut, very loudly, startling her and my dad. Neither saw it happen, as it was concealed by a drapery. I think my dad made up some lame excuse for that. Squirrels, perhaps?

We eventually moved to a brand new house in a brand new state. A few things happened there, too. Mom reports hearing people holding a conversation in the lower basement, which had no door. Thinking it was the TV, left on from earlier in the day, she went down to turn it off. As soon as she rounded the corner to go down the stairs, the talking stopped abruptly and with a little sound she describes as "boop," as if unexpectedly interupted.

She also reported sensing someone come into their darkened bedroom one night, and she told that someone to get out and never come back. I don't know if that someone did or not.

I never had any experiences there that I could definitively say were outside everyday experience. I heard some newspapers rattling around one day when I was lounging in bed one lazy weekend morning. I knew I was alone in the house, but I wasn't scared by that. I had some pretty bad dreams, and had my first experience with sleep paralysis. I thought it was something worse. I awoke on night, unable to move an inch and there was this terrible presence with me and the sense that something was sitting on my chest. I was convinced it was a ghost. I slept with the lights on for years after that. Only later did I discover that it was sleep paralysis. I've had episodes since, but I know what's going on and it's more of a novelty than a fright. I haven't had any experiences with ghosts since those days.

Thanks for reading.