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...

[iNurseUK, RN]

'Twas a dark and stormy night on the Plastics ward I worked on many moons ago. A patient had turned up on the ward with a post-op problem, hadn't phoned us or anything but just pitched up at the nursing station.

As he had attended our Outpatients clinic the day before we knew his medical notes would be there. The ward held the keys to the clinic out-of-hours and I was the lucky soul delegated to go and locate the notes.

Picture the scene. A deserted and dark clinic at midnight. As I unlocked the doors I could faintly, but distinctly hear voices. A bit spooked I hit all the lights, hurried to the reception area and headed for the out-tray. I could still hear the voices, too low for me to make out what they were saying but chilling in the desolate clinic.

Well I grabbed the notes, all over goosebumps, turned to flee and a green LED caught my attention on a high shelf. Yup the "ghostly" voices were a radio that had been left on:D

Feeling a total twit I hastened back to my ward with the notes, told my scary tale and was mercilessly mocked for about a million years.

[alicia211]

I was working in a behavioral health unit that had just opened and used to be the old hospital. I was having some bad chest pain so I decided to do an EKG just for giggles. We only had 2 patients on the unit that night so I picked an empty room, laid down on the bed and wired myself up. I had used that portable EKG machine many times and had everything plugged in, electrodes placed correctly, the battery was fully charged, etc and I couldn't get the thing to work...it just showed a flat line and blinked "check electrodes". Then I heard my coworker say something through the closed door so I quickly unhooked myself, looked outside the door and nobody was there. So I go to the nurses station and she's sitting there with the door closed charting. I asked her what she needed and she gave me a wierd look and asked me what I was talking about. I was so creeped out I couldn't even go back into the room to get the ekg machine! I used the Ekg machine the next day...in another room and it worked just fine. Creeeeeeeeeppy! Some of the other night shift nurses told me afterward that they had seen on the hallway cameras a head peaking out of the door way to that room many, many times.

[alicia211]

Oooh, just thought of another one...

Me, an LPN and a Cna were all at the desk charting in silence. I was in the middle, Michelle was on the left and Pat was on my right. I starting hearing a humming sound like someone was humming a song. I didn't think anything of it and just glanced at michelle. I heard the humming again and looked at her and asked "what are you humming". Her eyes got huge and she said "I thought that was you". I looked at Pat and asked her if she heard it...and she did. I went and looked on the other side of the desk and there was nobody there.... We were all pretty freaked out!

[simboka]

Second hand telling (worked night before and after) and not a ghost, per se, but supernatural. Pt had been CTD for a week after coding a few times in the ICU, DNR/DNI. The night he finally died, he would be mumbling and talking to his wife, who'd died suddenly a few months before. He'd be alert and saying that's who he's talking to, even after confirming she'd died. Finally, he passed. Doc called it. Looked at his telemetry and his last heart beat was the same time his wife was declared.

[lil pixi]

Really, really Fascinating thread. Makes you really think quite a bit about things.

I'll have to check out those books now too, esp. after reading all this.

Well, I'm through about half of it. But it's addicting...

And unfortunately, I am in the same boat with all you ladies who can barely walk to the bathroom afterward. :rotfl: :chair:

The possessed & levitating dude def had my jaw dropped. Got to be the freakiest yet.

And I DID cry over the woman talking to all her family members.

I'm sure it was happy, beautiful, comforting tears that struck me.

Mama & her baby boy & the dream - So beautiful. :redpinkhe

Just "wow" to so many of these. Thanks for sharing.

[CFitzRN, ADN]

This one is pretty creepy and it is one of the reasons I got out of the hospital and started working office case management. I worked many years on tele and I worked steady nights. I was constantly overtired, never felt quite rested. While waiting for my husband to get home (he worked steady 2nd shift, I worked steady nights) I was dozing on the couch, the kids were in bed. I was half in and out of consciousness when I felt a presence. Even though my eyes were closed tight, I "felt" the room turn red beyond my eyelilds. I started to hear the whispers of athousand souls in the room. The air was oppressive, and I tried to scream, though no sound came out. The whispers got louder and louder, though I could not tell what the souls were trying to say. When my husbands key turned in the door, the redness in the room vanished, the whispers instantly stopped, and I became wide awake, as though never asleep. I told my husband I felt it would be a bad night. Sure enough, in the room across the hall from the nurses station (you know the one, that is reserved for the sickest or the most unstable, so to be close when code is called) my coworkers patient strangled herself silently in her waist restraint. Her body was contorted, limbs contorted in unnatural ways, with her face smashed between the bedrail and the mattress. My coworker was distraught, having checked on her only 20 minutes prior. We called a code, and worked on her a back breaking 30 minutes, I did compressions, and I still remember the sound of a couple fo ribs cracking. In the end she was gone, and my coworker was beside herself. The next night the same scenario, I waited for my husband to come home, I drifted in and out of consciousness, the room turned red beyond my eyelids. and a thousand souls whispered tortured sounds into my ears, but I was unable to discern what they were saying. I opened my mouth to scream, nothing came out, I woke to the sound of the key in the door...That night I had agreed to switch sides with my coworker, having felt pity for her. The room across the hall was cleaned and in it was a new patient, a man in his 50's with moving chest pain...I was tired from the night before, my back still sore from the 30 minutes of doing compressions. I worked swiftly as I could getting in first rounds, checking frequently on my new friend across the hall with the moving chest pain. I was newly trained in telemetry, and felt concerned about the pain that moved across his chest, and down the left arm, then back up and down the right arm. Although I was new, I felt that I noted a subtle S-T depression on his rhythm strip. But a more seasoned tele nurse looked at the strip, and said it was nothing. I called the cardiologist, and though I didn't want to seem overly zealous, I told him about the moving chest pain, and what I felt to be a subtle change in the S-T segment. He ordered my patient maalox and tylenol, which I gave, then I was sidetracked by a patient whose rate suddenly went into the 150's. I got busy with his orders, and for a moment, forgot about my patient with the moving chest pain. Suddenly the unit clerk shouted at me in the still of the night down the hall, "Patti, go see your patient in 15, he is in V Tach!, as I raced to his room, she said, "NO! now he is in V fib!" I yelled over my shoulder, call a code! As I ran into his room, the hues changed from a soft yellow, to a definite red. I looked at my patient, as he sat up, and laid down, up and down up and down again and again, making these agonal sounds. He could not sit still. In the midst of this the code team came in. They all watched as this man sat up and laid down again and again. In awe, we watched as this man breathed his last earthly breath. As he laid down for the last time, they sprang into action, but too late. He died of a massive heart attack. A week later I was applying to every insurance company in town. I got my steady daylight weekends and holidays off. I make sure I get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I vow never to work nights again.

I realize this post was years ago, and things have changed I'm sure, but it sounds to me like you were being given some discernment about what would be happening. I also don't know your spiritual status, but I'm hoping that anyone who reads this or experiences similar circumstances will take a minute to just pray - put the night (or day if that's what their shift is) in God's hands and pray for all patients in their facility that day. I believe prayer is incredibly powerful, especially when there is a "revealing" like this post describes. I have experienced very similar occurrences whilst in a "twilight" state of consciousness. When it happens, I pray fervently.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

I agree. Prayer does help. I thought the creepiest message was the one about the levitating man who screamed; "Don't let me die!, Don't let me die!," and the one who was levitating over the head of his bed cursing the nurses. yikes!

[CFitzRN, ADN]

I agree with you - it wasn't only the creepiest story, it was very powerful from a spiritual perspective. I have come face-to-face with evil before and it is absolutely real. What I pray is that these women (and men if there were any) took that occurrence and used it to either strengthen an already existing faith, or to come to realize that the spiritual realm is just as real as the physical one - and as they witnessed - the two can cross over one another. I think God permits these things so that people who are resistant to Him will be unable to deny the truth of good and evil; God and satan. He does not will evil though - the man who was possessed had most likely allowed evil into his life and simply would not surrender to the truth of God and accept Him. As they saw first-hand, satan will claim whomever has given themselves to him. And denying God is giving oneself to satan, whether anyone wants to believe that or not. It is really sad what happened in that hospital room. I wish it never happened.

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

Not a hospital ghost story, but one that happened to my non believing son. He, at the time, was living in a dorm called Kamola on a college campus in Eastern WA. I guess there is a ghost there called Lola.

Lola was a young woman that lost her fiance to the war back around the turn of the century. She went to the attic of Kamola and hung herself.

My son scoffed at the stories and for months never heard a thing. Then one day he had a friend come dashing into his room, telling him to come quick. He raced to her room to hear this horrible scraping noise. They both lived on the third floor and Lola killed herself on the 4th. The noise was coming from above. An entire floor that had not been used in over 30 years.

Another time, shortly there after, my son went to take a shower. He always left is door unlocked to his dorm room. Many times, he'd go back and find it locked. He had to hunt down the RA to open up the door for him until he got smart and just took his keys with him.

The last straw for him, was a window that normally stuck and you had to use both hands to push it down. He was on the phone to me, when suddenly I heard, "OMG!" and then banging and crashing. I asked him what had happened. He said he was sitting there talking to me, when he saw his window slam shut. He jumped from his desk, knocking his junk aside and finished the conversation outside. He moved out 2 weeks later and never went back.

I used to tease him and when I'd visit, I'd sing the Barry Manilow song that had the lyrics, "Lola, she was a showgirl" but replace it with "Lola, she was from Kamola". I'd do it while walking down the dorm hallway. I never made her mad enough to come out.

Anyway, they closed the top floor of Kamola back in the 60's. They had way to many people hear crying and chairs scraping. The dorm is overflowing, but they won't open up that top floor to remodel it. It will remain sealed.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

I agree with you - it wasn't only the creepiest story, it was very powerful from a spiritual perspective. I have come face-to-face with evil before and it is absolutely real. What I pray is that these women (and men if there were any) took that occurrence and used it to either strengthen an already existing faith, or to come to realize that the spiritual realm is just as real as the physical one - and as they witnessed - the two can cross over one another. I think God permits these things so that people who are resistant to Him will be unable to deny the truth of good and evil; God and satan. He does not will evil though - the man who was possessed had most likely allowed evil into his life and simply would not surrender to the truth of God and accept Him. As they saw first-hand, satan will claim whomever has given themselves to him. And denying God is giving oneself to satan, whether anyone wants to believe that or not. It is really sad what happened in that hospital room. I wish it never happened.

I know exactly what you mean. Hopefully, many who have rejected God will submit to Him and accept Jesus as their Savior. He died so we could have access to eternal life. What an awesome deed. One we should always be grateful for.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

Tokmom, that was a creepy story too. I'm amazed they even use the building.

[Susan567]

I just joined this site today and I realize this post is off topic but I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am in the process of taking the NCLEX (waiting for my ATT letter) and I need to get in touch with the Board of Nusing of my state (which is California). I cannot get in touch with them by phone. I have called over 50 times in the last couple of weeks and just get a message that says "we are experiencing a high volume of calls and cannot take your call right now". Then I get disconnected. Does anyone on this site have any advise for me regarding how to get in contact with the board (short of sending a registered letter or driving the 400 miles to talk with them). Please help...Thanks