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...

This is a personal experience with my grandmother who died of renal failure while i was in nursing school. Let me start by saying my grandma was so proud that i was going into nursing school, she would tell everyone "I'm going to have a little nurse in my family" She would even tell all the nurses in the ICU that her grand daughter was going to be just like them.

I usually went to the hospital in the mornings before school but I had a test that day and wanted to look over some stuff so I decided I would go after the test. I took the test and in my school we have a review on powerpoint after the test. The powerpoint shows you the question, the answer and the rationale. So you can count how many you got wrong and know why they are wrong or right. I ended up getting only 1 wrong on that test... I couldn't wait to tell my grandma.

I drove to the hospital and my aunt was there. I walked in the room gave my grandma a kiss and said "hey gram guess what i got a 98 on my test." And my aunt pipes in and says why are you talking to her, she hasn't responded in 2 days. I looked at her and gave her a dirty look. and I continued to tell my grandma that I thought the test was so easy. and all of a sudden she says" Nikki I'm so proud of you, I'm going to have a nurse in the family." And that's all she said and didn't say anything else. I sat at the side of the bed for about an hour and the doctor came in and he said she didn't have a lot of time left. So I stayed with her a little more and they I told her I was going to call my mom to let her know that I was at the hospital so she knew where I was. And she squeezed my hand and I kissed her and said I will be right back.

I went out in the family waiting room to call my mom and tell her I was there and to come to the hospital soon because the doctor said she was getting worse. I go back into the room and her nurse was in there and said that shes leaving us.

I feel like she waited till I left the room because she was completely unresponsive for the last 2 days and she responded to me about my test and then she squeezed my hand when I told her I was going out in the hallway to call my mom. My aunt said that the minute I left the room her heart rate started to fall.

OK here is my Mum's after death experience.

My mum had 6 kids (not always by choice) & she had the last one quite late in life in her 30's in the mid-70's (that was quite old to have a last baby then).

Anyway her pregnancy, from what I can gather, wasn't the greatest & she was weak and sick when she was taken into the delivery room. The story is that the nurse giving her the gases got them mixed up and her heart gave out. She remembers floating above the staff working on her, and could recount exactly what they said. She said it wasn't like a dream, it was crystal clear and very real. Then she went down this long, long tunnel with very bright lights at the end of it, then she saw her mum who had died a few years ago. My Mum said she was screaming and crying that she wanted to go with her Mum into this light; she said the desire was stronger than anything she had ever encountered (even birth pains!) But her Mum just smiled beatifically & said it wasn't time for my Mum to come to her, she had work to finish and had to go back. My Mum was begging, pleading not to go back, but my grandma just kept smiling, & saying no. Mum also said that she had the most incredible sense of calm and peace, & felt that love was all around her-she said you don't feel anything like that in your earthly life. She wasn't concerned about any problems she had either because they all seemed so insignificant; she said you don't worry about anything in this new place; all your sorrows are forgotten. She couldn't emphasise this feeling of peace enough.

Well she remembers going back into her body and she was screaming and fighting to go back. She told the doctors about her experience and about what they said, and the doctor was astounded that she could relate everything they said.

She has never forgotten that experience & it left a big mark on her soul I think. I wondered about it for a long time & if we go to that beautiful place, I will be very glad.

My Mum has seen many ghosts and spirits in her lifetime. Her Mum was 'fay' in gaelic - she could sense things and tell when things were going to happen in advance. She had many premonitions as well that came true.

After death experiences fascinate me, because I have read stories where people go to a dark place, instead of seeing this tunnel of light & they have changed their ways afterwards. Scientists say it's just chemicals in the brain when we are dying, but I've often wondered that people from different cultures, with different religions experience the same, exact thing.

It makes you wonder about it all.

People from different cultures and religions seeing the same thing IS because we are all human, and maybe the same things happen as our brain dies...what the scientists say about neurons firing crazily and hallucinations etc..that is why the experience is similar for everyone. I hope there is something else, something beyond all this, and that is the basic human need, that is why we have religion - because the idea that after all the pain of life, there is NOTHING, no place to go, well, that is just too much to bear. Many strange things have happened through out history to make me think that there is something else beyond our scope of things - BUT no one has ever proven it, so I guess none of us will ever know, until we die.

Shannon77:

Witchcraft is another "religion" that apparently, many people believe in. I just think of it as, creative hollywood big bucks main theme. Or, I guess it's safe to say it's sorta like- American voodoo?

Some folks literally take "Harry Potter movies" TOO far.

I wonder if ghosts also have their own "preferred religion" to hang with?

witchcraft, or "wicca" as they call it, is for people who are desperate for attention, or power. Sort of silly if you ask me, don't they know there is no such thing as witches? I mean, I learned that in 1st grade.

Can I just say that I LOVE this thread? :D:yeah::D

Two experiences from the hospital:

I had a room with two post-op patients; bed 1 was awaiting discharge on POD 3 and bed 2 was completing a series of abx. Bed 1 goes home and that leaves bed 2, a content 40-something gentleman reading quietly in the room. Later on that shift, I took an admission to bed 1; an elderly gent with CHF, looking worse for wear. Trying to get him settled, I felt badly that I couldn't seem to ease his discomfort, though he thanked me profusely for trying. Fast forward to nighty night, and I give report and go home.

I come back the next day to find bed 1 empty and bed 2 greeting me with a cheerful hello. I ask co-workers what happened to bed 1 and they point him out, in a room in front of the station. Uh oh. Although he wasn't my patient, I stopped in to see how he was doing and was surprised to find him still, peaceful...and looking much more pink and improved from the night before. Hmm. I cursed my (new) nursing judgement for thinking this man so much worse off and after exchanging pleasantries, went back to my own patients.

Bed 2 calls, (unusual), and I go in to check on him. He asks how bed 1 is doing and where he was transferred to. Before I can think of a polite way to answer questions about the status of the other patient, Bed 2's voice gets really low and says, "You know, don't think I'm crazy or anything, but I was sure that guy was going to die."

(keeping face emotionless) I ask, "oh, what made you feel that way?". Bed 2 tells me that he is a priest, and had a feeling that he was placed with this gentleman to "help him cross".

Sure enough, patient from Bed 1 begins to take off his clothes, pointing at people we couldn't see, and telling us that he was going home. He did go home that night, and I was with his nurse to hold his hand as he passed.

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Another, from when I was a tech:

Elderly lady patient, in for surgery. Several days on the ward. After surgery, developed an infection and moved to isolation for treatment. Not surprisingly, she deteriorated and became confused as the days mounted. I was in her room, helping her through AM care, when she asked me 'if (I) scared easy'. I laughed - telling her no one from Texas scares easy - and ask her how I can help. She tells me that there is an animal - a furry one, maybe a dog, she says - hiding under the bed. "It keeps biting me", she says, "and it doesn't have eyes, a real mean-looking critter."

(pause to think of good answer) I made a big production of looking for the dog and reassuring her that there wasn't a dog and she needn't be afraid. She told me that I was a dear but I was very mistaken, and she was glad that I couldn't see it.

Sure enough, she began screaming later that night and was flailing against the dog, telling us not to let them get her. She passed away, but kept that awful expression - fright, really - on her face. :uhoh3:

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Personally, I've had some strange things happen when I had moved into my last apartment. Scratching in the walls, voices when no one else was home, doors closing on their own, feeling like you're being watched. Landlord wasn't surprised when I moved out at exactly 1 year, 1 day.

More stories, please! Anyone?

This is the 4th or 5th posts I have read here where patients saw dogs, or some sort of animal, usually black. One of the first posts in this thread is about a man in a nursing home, sees a black dog with red eyes, and it is trying to bite him - he dies that night, I think.... none of these dog posts are pleasant stories. Sort of surprises me, because dogs are such loving creatures, I would be happy and honored to have a dog escort me to heaven. But with the patients in these stories, I wonder, did they live good lives? Why are some people so peaceful at death and others so afraid? Is the dog real, or a symptom of their fear?

Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
why are some people so peaceful at death and others so afraid?
excellent question.
Specializes in Gerontology.

originally posted by bhavana viewpost.gif

why are some people so peaceful at death and others so afraid?

excellent question

perhaps our past really does come back to haunt us?

perhaps we really do have to explain/defend the actions we have taken throughout our lives?

Specializes in Travel.
Is that like the help that never shows up?

Or the PCTs that I can never find?

witchcraft, or "wicca" as they call it, is for people who are desperate for attention, or power. Sort of silly if you ask me, don't they know there is no such thing as witches? I mean, I learned that in 1st grade.

One could make the same statements about Christians, or Muslims, or Buddhists..........kettle, meet pot :clown:

Keep these great stories coming!

I was on a very busy medicine unit. I had just gotten a pt up from er, so i was attempting to get him in and settled.All the doors to the rooms were very hard to open and very heavy (you know the kind that you pretty much have to body slam to open) well every time i started to go throught the hundred questions you have to ask the door would come flyin open, so after about the third time said well maybe the latch is messing up so i wiggled the handle, opened and closed the, door pulled on it ( im sure i looked like i should have been on a locked unit) feeling confident i turned to the pt and said i think its fixed now. As I smiled and started back to my questions the door flew open again.... this time the pt looked at me and said " you know what i dont think we are alone" we just stared at each other for about 10 seconds he said exactly what i was thinking.. so feeling a little spooked i hurried through my questions and went into the nursing station telling what had just happened the PCT looked at me and said were you in room 216 thats been happening in there and the bathroom door has been doing it too ever since Mrs>>>> had passed away last week.... yep every time i got a pt tothat room i always waited for the door to come open

I really believe this, I think that people's spirits do not always leave right away, sometimes they linger. My grandfather died when i was 4, and after he died, my grandmother left the house to stay with her daughter, my mom, for a little while. One day my mom and one of my other aunts went to the house to pick up some clothes for my grandmom. They walked into the house and were standing in the kitchen when they heard sounds from upstairs in my grandfather's sick room. They clearly heard feet hit the floor, as if someone was getting out of bed, and footsteps go across the floor. Both of them heard it, and my mom was so scared she wet her pants. Later, after my grandmother went back home, she told my mom that my grandfather was still in the house, that she heard him calling her, moving around, opening drawers etc. And I can say for sure that my grandmother was a practical and unemotional person, not superstitious or imaginative or anything like that. Very straight up and serious. If she said she heard my grandfather in that house, then she heard him. Whenever I went over, I refused to go upstairs alone, yet when we were there earlier before my grandfather died, which was all the time, I had no fear of going anywhere in the house, including upstairs to his room where he spent all his time once he got too sick. I was only 4, so my understanding of death was limited, but I had fear that I didn't have before he died.

Eventually my grandmom moved to a smaller place...and my grandfather, who was a very good person, probably went his way...though my grandmom did say that years later she woke up in the early dawn hours cause she heard her front door open. She went to the living room and there was Grandpop, in the suit he was buried in, standing by the door. She said "What the hell are you doing here?" and he said "I've come to take you with me, Marie." She told him she wasn't going anywhere, and went back to her bedroom....when she checked the living room again, he was gone.

Specializes in Telemetry,, Med Surg. LTC, Home Health,.

Once, when I was working as an LPN on the noc. shift in a LTC in Ohio a very strange thing happened. It was an older nursing home with intercoms in the halls so we can call each other if we need to,. All intercoms were in the off position until about 5 am. that was policy, so off they were. We were alll at the nurses station doing paper work for next "rounds" when a crackling noise came over the intercom an a voice came over "nothing for nothing is nothing" when we went to check it out all intercoms were off an all residents sleeping. werid, huh?

I am not a nurse either, but I have been reading the posts on this site and find them very interesting. My response to the story of the rose petals is this: I have heard that when angels are near, there is a sweet aroma, often of flowers in the air. Maybe this is something like that. Also, I feel that when you come in contact with a patient who seems "posessed", if you are saved, all you have to do is call on Jesus. Demons and evil things are subject to God's power and must obey. The Bible says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord - that includes the evil you may come in contact with in dealing with certain patients. Also, I believe that our loved ones who have gone before us, may often help those crossing over to the other side. Even though we may not see it with our human eyes, there is something out there. Heaven is real, and I believe that some catch a glimpse of what beauty is to come when they are in their final days.

That explains it...May your Mom rest in peace! :heartbeat

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